AF 
VQ. 


[p.  24 


"  '  GOOD-NIGHT,   AJ,LEGKA ' ; 


THE 


MANTLE   OF    ELIJAH 


BY    I.    ZANGWILL 

AUTHOR  OF  "DREAMKRS  OF  THE  GHETTO " 
"THE  MASTER"  ETC.,  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED   BY 
LOUIS  LOEB 


HARPER    &•    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

1901 


Copyright,  1900,  by  ISRAEL  ZANGWILL. 

AU  rights  reserve' 


TO 


M.  W.    AND     E.  W. 


1781-177 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER                                                                   38  00  ft     11  PACK 

I.  ALLEGRA 3 

II.  "ELIJAH" 13 

III.  "BELLONA" 26 

IV.  HOME  POLITICS 29 

V.  TOM 39 

VI.  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 50 

VII.  "  FIZZY,  M.P." 58 

VIII.  THE  DUCHESS 73 

IX.  FIZZY  FALLS 87 

X.  FAMILY  LIFE 101 

XI.  MIDSTOKE 110 

XII.  RECONCILIATION 124 

XIII.  FEUDALISM 129 

XIV.  HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 145 

XV.  A  BLOODY  BANQUET 166 

XVI.  WAR 176 

XVII.  DARK  DAYS 192 

XVIII.  BOB  BROSER 195 

XIX.  "THE  HOUSE" 203 

XX.  MRS.  BROSER  AT  HOME 214 

XXI.  THE  WORLD  AND  THE  FLESH 226 

XXII.  EVE  IN  THE  GARDEN .  .  234 

XXIII.  ELIJAH  TRANSLATED.    ...  240 


CONTENTS 

'    CHAPTER                                                                JGOOl*     1111  PAGE 

I.  TENEBRAE 251 

II.  "A  DELIVERER?" 256 

III.  RESURRECTION 265 

IV.  CAUSERIE 276 

V.  RAPHAEL  DOMINICK 282 

VI.  MORS  ET  VITA 291 

VII.  POWER 298 

VIII.  TALK  AND  TRUMPET 310 

IX.  MARGARET  ENGELBORNE 319 

X.  CHRISTIAN  MARTYRS 331 

XI.  FEUDALISM  AGAIN 339 

XII.  ARMS  AND  THE  MEN 345 

XIII.  RAPHAEL  RETURNS 358 

XIV.  CARRIED  FORWARD 363 

XV.  MODERN  LOVE 368 

XVI.  OLD  COMRADES 380 

XVII.  THE  DUCHESS  IN  JOURNALISM 385 

XVIII.  A  RACE  TO  THE  DEATH 391 

XIX.  AT  THE  BAZAAR ...  898 

XX.  THE  BRINK  OP  LOVE 404 

XXI.  THE  BRINK  OP  DEATH 413 

XXII.  REACTION 426 

XXIII.  THE  GOAL 441 

XXIV.  THE  DUEL  OP  THE  SEXES 447 

XXV.  FAREWELL                                                          ....  454 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


''GOOD-NIGHT,  ALLEGRA'".    .    .         Frontispiece 

'"  YOUR  NIECE  ?  ALLIGATOR  ?' " Facing  p.     82 

"THE  CROWD  DREW  BACK" "       182 

"'i  CAN'T,  BOB,  i  CAN'T'" "       218 

"'AFTER  MY  DEATH'" "       288 

'"  KIT  IS  KILLING  YOU '" "       358 

THE  POISONED  ARROW "      422 


THE  MANTLE   OF  ELIJAH 


CHAPTER  I 
ALLEGRA 

,  there  you  are,  Miss  Ally,  blazing  away  the  gas. 
Here's  a  letter  for  you." 

"  Put  it  down,  Gwenny." 

Allegra's  eye,  "  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling,"  did  not  lift 
itself  from  the  paper  on  which  her  pen  was  rhyming, 
and  the  bedroom  mirror  before  which  she  wrote  con- 
tinued to  reflect  only  a  curly  head  of  reddish-brown  hair. 

The  old  Welsh  family  servant  stared.  Allegra's  wont 
was  to  fall  on  her  rare  letters  like  a  famished  tigress 
and  tear  open  their  vitals  in  a  twinkling.  "  You  might 
be  telling  us  the  news  from  the  young  ladies,"  Gwenny 
said  with  asperity. 

Allegra  did  not  reply,  but  made  a  long  erasure, 
frowned,  and  gnawed  at  her  quill. 

"  You  might  be  telling  your  mother  the  news  from  the 
young  ladies,"  persisted  Gwenny  severely. 

"  Hasn't  mother  got  a  letter,  too  ?" 

"  Not  a  scrap.  Blood  is  cheaper  than  ink.  We  are 
of  no  account." 

Allegra  fidgeted,  unwilling  to  be  dragged  from  Par- 
nassus either  by  domestic  politics  or  the  epistolary  chat- 
ter of  Dulsie  or  Mabel.  Had  she  not  been  looking  for- 

3 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

ward  to  the  silence  of  the  bedroom — the  unruffled  twin 
bed  beside  hers?  Otherwise  of  what  use  to  have  packed 
the  girls  off  to  the  gayeties  of  Cambridge  ? 

"  If  they  write,  they  must  be  well,"  she  said  curtly. 
"  What  other  news  can  there  be  ?" 

"  Indeed !  Two  girls  going  into  a  barracks  of  young 
men,  like  Daniel  in  the  lions'  den.  A  university  isn't 
exactly  Pabell  Dofydd." 

"  Pabell —  ?"     Allegra  looked  up  for  the  first  time. 

A  flush  spread  over  Gwenny's  sallow,  emaciated  face. 
"  I  suppose  you'd  be  saying  '  the  Tabernacle  of  the 
Lord.' ' 

Allegra  laughed — a  merry,  girlish  laugh  that  dissipated 
the  eye's  poetic  frenzy.  "  Is  that  Welsh  ?" 

"  And  if  it  is,  it's  as  good  as  English,"  and  the  fine 
frenzy  passed  to  Gwenny's  eye.  The  old  woman  had 
never  forgiven  the  tyrannical  prohibition  of  Welsh  in 
the  State  schools  of  her  youth. 

"  You  silly  old  Gwenny !     I  love  funny  words." 

Gwenny  threw  the  letter  down  on  Mabel's  bed.  "  It's 
like  an  oven  in  here,"  she  said  gruffly. 

"  Is  it  ?     So  it  is.     Open  the  window,  please." 

Gwenny  jerked  up  the  small-paned  black  sash  viciously. 
A  refreshing  air  blew  in  from  the  Thames.  Allegra 
unconsciously  drew  a  deep  breath. 

"  Oh !"  she  cried  ecstatically :  "  what  a  beautiful 
moon!"  She  peered  out  into  the  warm  June  night,  and 
thrilled  at  the  mystery  of  the  gray  masses  of  foliage 
on  the  uninhabited  bank  opposite.  Two  wisps  of  cloud 
on  the  moon's  face  gave  it  a  momentary  appearance  of  an 
illuminated  dial  with  hands,  and  she  thought  of  the 
Clock  Tower  of  the  House  of  Commons  farther  down  the 
river,  and  then  compassionately  of  her  father,  still  pris- 
oned by  dull  business  in  the  stuffy  national  vestry. 

"  And  who's  been  putting  up  that  text  ?" 

Gwenny's  querulous  voice  reminded  her  that  the  Family 
Skeleton  (as  Dulsie  had  christened  her)was  still  waiting 

4 


ALLEGRA 

to  read  the  letter.  She  popped  in  her  head.  "  I  put  it 
up,"  she  said,  smiling. 

"  It  doesn't  match  the  others — and  it  isn't  printed  nice- 
ly at  all." 

"  It  isn't  printed  at  all.     I  wrote  it." 

The  old  woman  put  on  her  spectacles  and  read  out  slow- 
ly, with  waxing  mistrust,  for  her  world  was  divided  into 
Christians  and  Church-of-England : 

"  Fame  is  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 

(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds), 
To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days." 

"  Is  that  in  the  Bible  ?"  she  asked. 

"  It's  in  my  Bible,"  said  Allegra,  evasively. 

"  Your  Prayer-Book  is  not  the  Bible,"  Gwenny  remind- 
ed her,  resentfully.  "  I  never  saw  anything  in  the  Bible 
about  fame,  except  '  And  Herod  the  Tetrarch  heard  of  the 
fame  of  Jesus.' ' 

"  Tetrarch !  What  a  lovely  word !"  And  Allegra's  eyes 
relit  as  she  wrote : 

"The  purple  Tetrarch  vanquished  by  the  Babe." 

"  Babe,"  she  muttered,  "  cabe,  fabe,  labe,  mabe,  rabe, 
sabe,  tabe."  An  anxious  frown  darkened  her  bright  young 
brow  as  with  an  ink-stain.  "  Yabe,  zabe,  clabe,  crabe, 
shabe,  stabe.  Is  it  possible  there's  no  rhyme  to  babe  ?  I 
never  knew  that  before.  Such  a  simple  word,  too!"  She 
wondered  lugubriously  how  the  idyllists  of  the  nursery 
had  managed.  Then  some  inner  sprite  whispered  "  As- 
trolabe," and  she  had  a  flash  of  joy,  followed  by  a  cloud  of 
doubt.  Could  she  possibly  get  Astrolabe  in  ?  And  what 
did  it  mean  exactly  ?  Anxiously  she  turned  the  pages  of 
her  dictionary.  A  sigh  of  relief  escaped  her  lips,  and 
she  wrote : 

"That  star  unkenned  of  earthly  Astrolabe." 
The  banging  of  the  door  awoke  her  from  bliss.     Gwenny 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

had  gone.  Allegra's  lip  quivered  in  remorse,  and  she  rose 
as  if  to  go  after  the  old  woman,  but  she  went  no  farther 
than  picking  up  the  letter.  She  was  only  sixteen,  a-flutter 
with  sweet  impulses,  and  her  chin  was  pointed,  which  is 
said  to  be  a  sign  of  indecision.  Soul  and  body  seemed 
to  play  into  each  other,  interflashing  in  a  fascinating  femi- 
ninity. You  had  the  sense  of  frank,  girlish,  blue-gray  eyes, 
of  an  erect,  limber  figure,  of  bubbling  laughter,  breaking 
into  tears,  of  quick  emotion  and  nervous  half-hysteria,  of 
humor  playing  about  the  closed  mouth  and  the  dancing 
eyes ;  of  ambition  reaching  towards  the  coming  years,  and 
conceiving  failure  as  more  tragic  than  death,  of  high  he- 
roics mingled  with  schoolgirl  giggles  and  love  of  candy — 
the  woman  half  out  of  her  shell. 

Once  the  letter  in  her  hand,  Allegra's  lapsed  instinct 
reasserted  itself,  and  she  tore  it  open,  anxious  to  know 
whether  it  was  from  Dulsie  or  Mabel,  for  the  pointed  pen- 
manship of  the  early  Victorian  period  was  a  symbol  of  the 
general  absorption  of  woman's  individuality  into  the  lady- 
like. The  contents,  however,  were  not  so  prim. 

"  DARLING  ALLEGBA, — Oh,  what  a  fool  you  were  not  to  come !  This 
is  all  I  have  time  to  tell  you.  Such  fun!  Connie  makes  a  splendid 
chaperon.  What  a  luck  one  of  us  is  married!  Concerts,  dinners, 
and  even  a  ball!  They  say  this  is  the  first  year  there  has  been  one, 
for  they  have  never  had  so  many  lady  visitors,  but  this  is  the  ideal 
place  for  balls,  there  are  such  quiet  moonlit  quadrangles  to  sit  out 
the  dances  in.  ( Dulsie  has  a  cold,  but  don't  tell  mother. )  And  then 
the  river!  The  bumping  is  a  joy  forever.  Tom's  college  went  up 
two,  and  everybody  says  it  was  all  owing  to  Tom  being  stroke.  I 
was  so  proud  of  him,  and  I  never  knew  how  handsome  he  was  till  1 
saw  him  in  his  flannels.  And  I  never  knew  how  lovely  Dulsie  was  till 
I  saw  her  in  Tom's  cap  and  gown,  just  like  the  pictures  of  Kitty 
Clive  as  Portia.  It  was  in  Tom's  rooms  and  he  has  such  a  lot  of  nice 
friends.  He  is  in  the  very  best  set — all  lords,  and  honorables,  and 
sporting  men — and  Lord  Arthur  Pangthorne,  such  a  handsome  boy, 
said  it  only  needed  to  put  a  pipe  in  Dulsie's  mouth  and  send  her  into 
the  streets  under  the  eye  of  a  '  Bull-dog.'  How  we  laughed !  'I  only 
saw  one  good-looking  Don,  but  all,  even  to  the  baldest,  are  more 
amiable  than  you  would  expect  of  such  learned  owls;  indeed  I  do  be- 
lieve they  would  flirt,  if  one  held  out  a,  finger.  But  of  course  they 
are  the  worst  kind  of  detrimentals,  for  they  are  not  allowed  to  marry 
at  all.  Poor  Monks!  Then  we  have  seen  all  the  sights,  and  the 

6 


ALLEGRA 

1  Backs '  and  the  '  Bridge  of  Sighs,'  and  King's  College  Chapel,  which 
is  just  too  sweet  for  words,  and  makes  you  feel  religious,  and  spine- 
shivery,  and  all  that.  But,  talking  of  bumping,  the  real  bumping 
only  begins  when  all  is  over,  and  you  row  home  on  the  sunshiny  Cam, 
which  isn't  as  big  as  our  river  but  they  are  proud  of  it  all  the  sa.me 
and  don't  you  remember  father  telling  us  he  could  have  jumped  across 
the  Ilissus?  And  when  you  row  home  it  is  all  one  jam  packed  solid, 
such  a  swarm  of  parasols  of  every  color,  every  boat  scrunching  into 
every  other,  and  all  the  oars  locking  and  crisscrossing,  and  everybody 
laughing  and  shouting  and  squeezing,  and  skiffs  capsizing,  and  the 
people  coming  up  like  wet  rats.  Tom  showed  me  a  dripping  Duchess, 
and  it's  a  wonder  we  didn't  drop  in  ourselves  at  the  River  God's  '  At 
Home,'  as  Dulsie  called  it.  I  trembled  for  our  new  frocks,  not  be- 
cause of  mother's  howling  when  we  get  home,  but  because — well,  you 
know  we've  got  only  one  change.  I  do  wish  I  had  bought  one  of 
those  new  little  Spanish  toques.  Well,  I  really  must  stop  now,  for 
we  have  to  take  tea  with  the  Master  of  I  forget  what — only  it's  not 
Hounds.  But  he  is  very  important  all  the  same,  and  says  he  ad- 
mires father's  speeches,  although  he  doesn't  agree  that  the  paper 
duty  should  be  repealed,  as  it  would  produce  a  swarm  of  cheap  and 
nasty  newspapers.  I  listened  in  silence,  pretending  to  understand  all 
about  it.  Well,  good-bye.  Dulsie  joins  me  in  love  and  in  thinking 
you  a  fool. 

Affectionately  yours, 

MABEL. 

"  P.S. — Look  in  the  second  drawer  and  see  if  there  isn't  another 
pair  of  evening  gloves,  and  if  not  lend  me  the  ones  you  were  presented 
in — I  dare  say  they'll  fit,  if  you  didn't  make  them  dirty.  The  Family 
Skeleton  will  pack  them  up,  as  I  know  you  hate  being  bothered." 

Allegra's  face  grew  wistful  at  the  picture  of  the  sunlit 
boats  and  the  diamond-dripping  oars,  but  she  fixed  her  eyes 
on  the  text  she  had  added  to  the  bedroom  decorations. 
"  The  Way  of  the  Ungodly  shall  Perish,"  and  other  Metho- 
distic  sentiments  from  the  Old  Testament,  chosen  by 
Gwenny,  were  grown  meaningless  from  years  of  famili- 
arity, but  Milton's  lines  had  the  acuteness  of  a  trumpet- 
call.  Fame  was  indeed  Allegra's  present  spur  in  more 
than  one  sense,  for  she  was  composing  a  heroic  poem  on  it 
in  the  hope  of  attaining  it.  Allegra,  in  a  word,  was  a 
Cornucopian. 

The  Children's  Cornucopia  was  a  weekly  budget  of  tales 
and  essays  and  verses,  of  unimpeachable  moral  tone,  count- 
ing among  its  readers  children  of  all  ages,  not  excluding 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

second  childhood,  and  of  all  social  planes,  not  excluding 
the  highest,  though  had  the  writers  known  that  in  Allegra 
they  addressed  a  Cabinet  Minister's  daughter,  they  might 
have  dreamed  wildly  of  state  pensions.  But  the  Cornu- 
copia's chief  circulation  was  among  ill-to-do  schoolboys 
and  schoolgirls;  a  fact  to  the  credit  of  the  juvenile  mob, 
begirt  by  importunate  illustrations  of  ghosts  and  pirates. 
For,  whereas  your  superior  cherub  has  his  reading  matter 
sifted  like  his  diet,  the  youngster  of  the  streets  lays  out 
his  infrequent  penny  to  his  heart's  content.  Nothing 
could  be  more  elevating  than  the  Cornucopia's  "  Answers 
to  Correspondents,"  in  which  moral  guidance  was  mixed 
with  recipes  for  making  rockets.  Allegra  herself  had  once 
received  information  on  the  training  of  rabbits,  and  though 
her  rabbits  had  pined  away,  Allegra's  faith  in  the  Editor's 
omniscience  was  undisturbed.  He  was  to  her  a  divinity, 
shrined  in  Fleet  Street  from  mortal  gaze.  The  Cornu- 
copians — that  was  the  Editor's  name  for  his  gentle  read- 
ers— felt  like  a  happy  family,  over  which  he  presided  like 
a  grandfatherly  god.  But  perhaps  the  paper  owed  its 
success  less  to  the  Editor's  austere  principles  and  radiating 
benevolence  than  to  its  fostering  the  literary  passion  in  its 
purchasers.  The  itch  of  writing  is  regarded  as  a  malady 
of  the  mature,  but  it  is  in  truth  an  infantile  disease,  which 
is  worked  out  of  the  system  early,  save  in  an  incurable 
minority,  mostly  fools.  The  Cornucopia  was  earliest  to 
discover  this,  and  by  a  back  page  of  versified  riddles,  writ- 
ten by  its  readers,  it  provided  an  easy  gradus  to  Parnassus. 
(Parnassus  was  a  word  often  on  the  riddlers'  pens.)  My 
first  was  a  lyric,  and  my  second  a  sonnet,  and  my  whole 
was  a  charade  quite  easy  to  guess.  By  this  device  a  high 
heroic  strain  might  be  worked  off  as  an  acrostic,  torsos  of 
epics  found  the  light  as  anagrams,  and  Clio  assisted  at  the 
parturition  of  a  palindrome.  W.  P.  B.  was  the  Cornu- 
copians'  humorous-melancholy  synonym  for  failure.  If 
Parnassus  was  Paradise,  the  Waste-Paper  Basket  was  the 
Inferno,  but  under  the  cheery  editorial  tact  there  was  no 


ALLEGRA 

need  to  abandon  hope  if  you  entered  here.  Doubtless  most 
of  the  doddering  septuagenarians  who  feverishly  bought 
the  paper  for  their  imaginary  infants  were  riddling  rhyme- 
sters ;  print  was  the  bait  at  which  they  nibbled  with  tooth- 
less gums,  and  the  ingenuous  pseudonyms  of  Baby  Bunting 
and  Little  Red  Riding-Hood  masked  the  poetic  outpourings 
of  still  hopeful  senescence. 

But  there  was  a  broader  path  to  Parnassus,  for  you 
might  actually  aspire  to  contribute  unpaid  matter  to  the 
prior  pages,  and  sometimes — O  golden  spur! — money 
prizes  were  offered  for  the  best  poem  or  story.  The 
same  uncanny  insight  into  human  nature  which  had 
brought  the  Cornucopia  into  universal  request  had  dictated 
its  choice  of  the  subject  for  competition — "  Fame."  Noth- 
ing obsesses  the  imagination  of  the  unpublished  so  much 
as  the  trials  and  triumphs  of  the  literary  aspirant.  The 
amateur  author's  pet  theme  is  the  professional  author,  to 
wit,  himself  magnified  and  haloed.  Five  pounds  awaited 
the  best  hundred  lines  on  "  Fame  "  in  heroic  couplets ;  two 
pounds  the  second  best!  while  half  a  guinea  consoled  the 
Pegasus  that  was  placed. 

In  Allegra's  day-dream  world  nothing  loomed  so  vast 
and  shining  as  this  same  "  Fame,"  and  so  she  had  been 
working  desperately  what  time  Dulsie  and  Mabel  assisted 
at  the  May-term  festivities.  To-night  or  never  the  poem 
must  be  finished.  Posted  to  Fleet  Street  the  first  thing 
in  the  morning,  it  would  just  arrive  in  time.  In  the  re- 
morseless progression  of  the  days  the  term  of  the  compe- 
tition had  arrived. 

Allegra's  poem  was  a  haggis  of  motley  allusions  in  the 
catholic  spirit  of  her  favorite  Milton.  Chatterton  and 
Apelles,  and  the  Cid,  Plato  and  Byron  and  Charlemagne, 
Mrs.  Siddons  and  Thennopylffi  and  Clio,  were  blended 
with  Paladins,  Crusaders,  Seraphim,  and  the  Holy  Grail. 
Parnassus  came  three  times  and  Fame's  Scroll  four,  not 
including  its  "  Bead-Roll."  But  the  main  note  was  mar- 
tial. Armor  clanked  and  the  bugle  blew  throughout. 

9 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

But  alas !  the  poetess  did  not  feel  that  her  verses,  even  in 
their  eleventh  incarnation,  had  risen  to  the  height  of  their 
great  argument ;  they  had  not  even  risen  to  her  own  height. 
And  she  had  so  set  her  mind  on  the  big  prize,  on  thrilling 
that  little  inner  circle  of  Cornucopians,  whose  rustling 
laurels  kept  one  another  from  sleep ;  to  say  nothing  of  the 
vaster  circle  of  mere  readers,  which  was  as  the  circle  of 
the  horizon.  If  her  inspiration  did  not  come  to-night,  all 
was  lost. 

And  it  had  come,  it  was  coming.  Gwenny's  entrance  and 
Mabel's  letter  had  not  disconcerted  it.  The  moon  had 
even  given  it  a  fillip.  She  resumed  her  bent  posture  at 
the  dressing-table  under  the  gas-globe :  her  eyes  shone,  her 
heart  sang,  her  cheeks  glowed.  Verses  seemed  to  hover 
about  her  head  like  a  whirl  of  bright  butterflies;  she  had 
only  to  pin  them  down. 

And  then  suddenly  something  fell  with  a  little  thud 
on  her  paper:  not  a  butterfly,  but  a  poor  singed  moth 
tumbled  from  the  gas-globe.  Allegra's  cheek  grew  as  pale 
with  pity.  She  touched  the  sprawling  insect  delicately 
with  her  pen,  helping  to  set  it  on  its  legs  again.  It  crawl- 
ed off  lop-sided,  with  one-winged,  spasmodic  efforts  to  fly. 
She  was  glad  when  it  dragged  itself  out  of  sight.  Alas ! 
it  was  but  the  pioneer  of  a  suicidal  swarm  that  kept  flutter- 
ing round  the  candescent  orb.  Allegra  waved  them  away 
with  her  handkerchief,  but  they  returned  recklessly — 
strange,  dingy, fluffy  creatures  of  all  sizes  and  shapes,  spawn 
perhaps  of  the  abnormal  heat  wave,  whirring  dizzily  down- 
wards, frizzled  and  contorted.  Allegra  was  sorry  the  old 
woman  had  opened  the  window ;  and  though,  now  that  her 
consciousness  was  directed  to  the  point,  she  felt  the  room 
oppressively  hot,  the  descent  of  a  daddy-long-legs  with  its 
legs  shrivelled  short  made  the  air  from  without  even  more 
intolerable.  With  a  sharp  tug  she  shut  out  the  night  and 
the  river. 

In  vain.  An  invading  cohort  seemed  to  be  already  in 
possession — an  army  bent  on  storming  the  fiery  position. 

10 


ALLEGRA 

Insect  after  insect  plumped  on  her  paper,  scorched  into 
a  hobbling  creature,  disfranchised  of  the  aether.  Some 
she  aided  as  best  she  could :  others,  wriggling  in  fragment- 
ary life — fricassees  of  nerves,  they  seemed  to  her  tortured 
fancy — she  stamped  out  of  their  agony,  though  she  had  to 
clinch  her  teeth,  and  there  was  sickness  at  her  heart. 

What  fatal  perversity  drew  them  to  self-slaughter  ?  she 
wondered.  Why  had  Nature  given  them  so  self-destruc- 
tive an  instinct?  Or  was  this  perhaps  their  hell — were 
they  sinners  under  metempsychosis  ?  She  examined  the 
wounded  with  new  interest,  striving  to  read  spiritual  re- 
morse behind  their  physical  writhings.  Well,  souls  or 
moths,  she  would  be  no  party  to  their  punishment. 

She  turned  down  the  gas  till  she  could  hardly  see,  but 
the  episode  had  added  a  vivid  image  to  her  couplets. 

With  flaming  heart  he  sought  the  heart  of  flame, 
And  crippled  fell  upon  the  page  of  Fame. 

She  plodded  away,  almost  happy  again  at  this  windfall. 
But  the  flame  was  still  sufficiently  seductive,  and  more 
souls  or  moths  continued  to  illustrate  the  image  literally. 
Allegra  burst  into  tears.  She  could  bear  it  no  longer. 
Fame,  purchased  at  such  a  price — was  it  worth  having? 
She  looked  at  her  watch.  Past  ten  o'clock.  No,  there 
was  no  other  room  to  go  to,  without  disturbing  some  one 
or  being  disturbed. 

Fame — or  the  well-being  of  the  moths?  It  was  too 
vexatious.  Here  was  the  very  summit  of  Parnassus  in 
view.  And  the  poem  could  not  be  finished,  the  post  could 
not  be  caught.  Perhaps  she  might  rise  with  the  dawn. 
But  how  could  the  Muse  work  at  such  pressure  ?  To-night 
she  had  had  the  leisurely  feeling  of  the  long  calm  hours 
'twixt  her  and  the  post.  No,  the  dream  was  over.  Her 
tears  of  pity  turned  to  self-pity  as  she  extinguished  the  gas. 
She  sat  in  the  darkness,  too  miserable  to  brush  her  hair, 
forgetting  even  to  open  the  window  and  look  at  the  moon. 

Presently  she  heard  her  younger  sister  Joan  ascending 

11 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

the  stairs  to  the  neighboring  bedroom,  which  she  shared 
with  Dulsie. 

"  Asleep,  Ally  2"  came  a  careless  cry  as  Joan  passed 
the  door. 

"  Yes !"  Allegra  answered  crossly.  "  I  mean,  I  want 
my  room  to  myself." 

"  Don't  be  so  cock-a-hoop  about  it.  I've  got  two  beds 
of  my  own." 

Allegra  heard  Joan  singing  as  she  undressed,  and  she 
envied  the  light-heartedness  of  Youth. 


CHAPTER  II 
"  ELIJAH  " 

FTER  a  vague  period  of  numb  misery  and  wander- 
ing  thoughts,  Allegra  found  her  brain  turning  out 
fresh  couplets,  and  presently  lo!  she  was  afire  with  the 
old  eagerness,  intensified  by  dread  of  everything  now  be- 
ing too  late ;  the  Muse  flown,  the  post  lost,  the  prize  missed. 
She  held  her  watch  to  the  moonlight  and  discovered  it 
was  eleven  o'clock. 

"  At  the  eleventh  hour !"  she  murmured  dramatically, 
pleased  with  the  position.  "  All  may  yet  be  snatched 
from  the  flame!"  She  opened  her  door,  and  found  the 
landing  and  staircases  dark.  She  would  go  down  to  the 
now  surely  deserted  drawing-room,  where  moths  were  im- 
probable. She  slid  down  two  flights  of  banisters  and  ar- 
rived softly  outside  the  drawing-room  door.  An  unexpect- 
ed bar  of  light  stole  from  under  it.  Could  her  mother  have 
fallen  asleep  in  her  arm-chair  ?  She  turned  the  door- 
handle quietly,  then  saw  with  a  shock  her  father's  whiten- 
ing head  and  broad  shoulders  bent  over  a  litter  of  papers 
on  the  round  table,  and  at  his  elbow  the  red  despatch-box 
that  meant  dry-as-dust  Cabinet  affairs.  She  remained 
glued  to  the  threshold,  hesitant  whether  to  advance  or 
retreat.  Time  was  when  she  had  shared  the  general  in- 
difference of  the  household  to  his  convenience.  When  she 
was  rearing  rabbits  on  Cornucopian  principles,  she  had 
once  dumped  the  whole  family  down  on  his  manuscript, 
as  he  sat  writing.  He  had  taken  them  up  gently  by  the 
ears  and  placed  them  silently  on  the  floor,  and  resumed 
his  writing  without  a  word  of  reproach ;  but  somehow  she 

13 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

knew  she  had  sinned.  His  present  attitude  brought  the 
episode  back,  and  she  had  a  lively  twinge  of  remorse,- 
conceiving  now  the  horror  of  little  rabbits'  legs  scurry- 
ing across  the  wet  lines  of  "  Fame."  The  memory  de- 
cided her  for  retreat;  but  her  father  turned  his  head 
vaguely. 

"  Ah,  come  in,  Mabel,"  he  said  pleasantly,  not  ceasing  to 
write. 

Allegra's  face  flushed  up  as  if  to  match  her  hair.  "  I'm 
not  Mabel,"  she  said  apologetically.  "  Mabel's  at  Cam- 
bridge." 

He  smiled ;  the  wistful  fascinating  smile  which  had  won 
over  howling  mobs,  and  which  Allegra  had  inherited  from 
him.  In  fact  there  were  moments  when  he  seemed  only 
a  whiskered  and  world-worn  Allegra.  Something  of  wom- 
anly sweetness  shone  in  the  brown  eyes  under  the  great 
white  forehead,  and  sometimes  the  pain  in  them  vanished 
in  a  gayety  less  boyish  than  girlish  in  its  tenderness  and 
humor. 

"  It's  a  wise  father  that  knows  his  own  child,"  he  mur- 
mured ;  "  then  you  must  be  Allegra.  And  why  is  Allegra 
roaming  about  at  this  hour  ?" 

Allegra  crimsoned  deeper.  Her  literary  passion  had 
roots  of  virginal  shyness ;  not  even  her  sisters  were  in  the 
secret.  And  how  could  one  lay  bare  one's  pity  for  moths  ? 
Not  since  that  moment — a  month  ago — when,  she  was  curt- 
sying to  the  Queen,  walking  backwards,  had  Allegra  felt 
so  uncomfortable. 

"  I  didn't  know  any  one  was  here,"  she  murmured. 

"  Am  I  in  your  way,  dear  ?"  he  said,  with  quick  con- 
siderateness.  "  Do  you  want  anything  ?" 

"  Oh,  no,  no,  father ;  don't  disturb  yourself.  I — I  only 
— "  she  ended  desperately.  "  May  I  use  your  ink  ?" 

"  Certainly,  dear.  And  would  you  like  the  Great  Seal 
too?" 

His  laughing  eyes,  gleaming  benevolently  behind  his 
reading-glasses,  met  hers,  and  at  once  a  great  ease  fell  upon 


"ELIJAH" 

her.  Then  he  did  definitely  disentangle  her  from  her  sis- 
ters. The  Great  Seal  joke — though  it  had  not  been  men- 
tioned between  them  for  years — was  hers  and  his  exclu- 
sively. In  her  imaginative  childhood  she  had  overheard 
a  snuffy,  red-nosed  old  gentleman,  who  she  understood 
had  just  given  up  being  Lord  Chancellor,  telling  her  father 
of  what  Her  Majesty  had  said  when  he  brought  her  back 
the  Great  Seal.  The  picture  of  a  Great  Seal  flopping 
about  the  steps  of  the  throne  fascinated  the  child ;  it  com- 
pleted her  idea  of  the  beautiful  young  Queen.  She  asked 
her  father  who  would  look  after  the  Seal  now,  and  her 
father  told  her  the  next  Lord  Chancellor,  that  official  being 
the  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal.  He  showed  her  the  title 
in  an  official  list,  and  she  read  further  how  the  creature 
was  carried  behind  him  by  the  Deputy-Sergeant-at-Arms 
and  deposited  upon  the  Woolsack.  He  told  her  some 
Chancellors  he  had  known  never  parted  with  the  Seal,  day 
or  night:  which  gave  new  pictures  of  its  riding  in  car- 
riages and  sprawling  at  bedsides  as  well  as  squatting  on 
sacks  of  wool  vaguely  connected  with  the  Black  Sheep. 
Two  years  later,  when  she  had  grown  to  glimmerings 
of  doubt,  every  spark  of  scepticism  was  stifled  for  another 
term  by  his  gravely  hunting  out  for  her  the  passage 
in  the  history  of  England  that  told  how,  when  James 
II.  was  crossing  the  horse-ferry  on  the  Thames  in  his 
first  baffled  flight  to  France,  he  had  thrown  the  Great 
Seal  into  the  river,  patently  restoring  it  to  its  native 
element. 

"  But  did  they  fish  it  up  for  William  of  Orange  ?"  Alle- 
gra  had  inquired. 

"  Yes — the  very  next  morning,  and  took  it  to  White- 
hall." 

Encouraged  therefore  by  her  father's  mood,  Allegra 
drew  up  a  chair  to  the  table,  but  though  he  abstractedly 
cleared  a  little  place  for  her,  he  had  apparently  already 
forgotten  her  in  the  manuscript  he  was  revising.  One  page 
he  had  tossed  towards  her,  and  the  bold,  clear  caligraphy  of 

15 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

the  Departmental  Clerk  flashed  its  sense  upon  her  indiffer- 
ent eye. 

"  And  be  it  further  enacted  that  the  said  Commis- 
sioners shall  receive  from  time  to  time,  for  their  guid- 
ance in  the  execution  of  their  said  Commission,  such  in- 
structions, not  being  repugnant  to  the  provisions  of  this 
Act,  as  shall  for  that  purpose  be  issued  to  them  by  Her 
Majesty,  through  one  of  her  principal  Secretaries  of 
State " 

Somehow  it  reminded  her  of  Joan  sharpening  a  slate- 
pencil,  and  she  shuddered. 

Poor  father !  To  have  things  like  that  added  to  his  do- 
mestic worries.  JSTo  wonder  his  nice  tawny  head  was  grow- 
ing all  silver,  losing  even  that  "  bimetallism  "  which  Dul- 
sie's  wit  had  detected  in  it.  A  wave  of  tenderness  for  him 
began  to  heave  her  breast.  But  she  chanced  to  see  the 
clock,  and  she  settled  severely  to  her  poetic  task. 

It  was  a  colossal  clock,  purchased,  like  all  the  furniture, 
by  the  mistress  of  the  house,  and  remarkable  even  after  the 
Great  Exhibition  of  bad  taste  had  misled  an  artless  na- 
tion into  the  rococo.  The  eye  was  enticed,  not  only  by  a 
floral  gilt  maze,  populated  with  figures,  but  by  bas-reliefs 
of  allegorical  cherubs  surmounted  by  semi-detached  and 
semi-attired  statuettes  of  Grecian  nymphs.  The  dial  itself, 
tiny  in  size  and  swaddled  in  an  ormolu  wreath  that  depend- 
ed from  a  crowning  basket  of  ormolu  flowers,  would  have 
been  lost  to  the  vision  had  it  not  been  so  near  the  summit 
of  the  structure.  That  clock  alone  would  have  told  you  the 
time  of  the  century.  It  was  the  period  when  the  simple 
outline  of  the  Greeks  was  regarded  as  only  the  A  B  C  of 
art;  mere  ground-theme  for  the  pizzicato  passages  of  a 
more  enlightened  posterity.  Even  these  decorative  convo- 
lutions were  obscured  in  a  gorgeous  riot  of  minute  involu- 
tions. Big  ornaments  had  little  ornaments  on  their  backs, 
and  little  ornaments  had  lesser  ornaments,  and  so  ad  infini- 
tum.  You  could  not  see  the  forest  for  the  trees,  nor  the 

16 


"ELIJAH" 

trees  for  the  twigs.  The  aim  of  the  artist  was  not  to  con- 
ceal art  but  to  conceal  the  article. 

Even  the  plain  round  table  at  which  Allegra  and  her 
father  wrote  had  contrived  to  complicate  itself  below  the 
surface:  for  its  leg  after  losing  itself  in  a  bush  of  orna- 
ment reappeared  as  two,  each  striding  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  other,  and  sprouting  forth  a  limbless  cherub, 
which  turned  its  back  on  its  fellow.  The  demands  of 
gravity  were  answered  by  further  pedal  bifurcations. 

And  Allegra's  father,  too,  the  Elijah  of  whose  mantle 
there  is  question  in  this  story,  was  early  Victorian.  His 
soul  was  of  the  old  eternal  pattern  that  seeks  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  is  jarred  by  Ahabs  and  Jezebels,  but  his  color- 
ing was  according  to  the  epoch.  He  was  tinged  by  Dickens, 
by  Cobden,  by  Carlyle,  by  Combe's  Constitution  of  Man, 
by  the  Great  Exhibition,  by  the  Chartists.  If  he  vibrated 
to  the  Continental  unrest,  if  the  Eights  of  Man  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Nations  were  in  the  background  of  his 
mind,  the  foreground  was  English,  practical,  concrete,  solid. 
And  his  first  thought  was  for  England — England  at  peace, 
clean,  contented,  sober,  happy — a  beacon  to  a  weltering 
Continent.  Freedom  was  no  nebulous  figure,  aureoled 
with  shining  rhetoric,  blowing  her  own  trumpet,  but  Free 
Trade,  Free  Speech,  Free  Meals,  Free  Education.  He 
did  not  rage  against  the  Church  as  the  enemy,  but  he 
did  not  count  on  it  as  a  friend.  His  Millennium  was  earth- 
ly, human;  his  philosophy  sunny,  untroubled  by  Dan- 
tesque  depths  or  shadows ;  his  campaign  unmartial,  consti- 
tutional, a  frank  focussing  of  the  new  forces  emergent 
from  the  slow  dissolution  of  Feudalism  and  the  rapid 
growth  of  a  modern  manufacturing  world,  steam-hatched. 
Towards  such  a  man  the  House  of  Commons  had  an  uneasy 
hostility.  He  did  not  play  the  game.  Whig  and  Tory, 
yellow  and  blue,  the  immemorial  shuffling  of  Cabinet  cards, 
the  tricks  and  honors — he  seemed  to  live  outside  them 
all.  He  was  no  clubman  in  "  the  best  club  in  England." 
He  did  not  debate  for  argument's  sake  or  to  upset  Minis- 

17 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

ters.  He  was  not  bounded  by  the  walls  of  the  Chamber 
nor  ruled  from  the  Speaker's  chair :  the  House  was  resent- 
fully conscious  it  had  no  final  word  over  his  reputation  or 
his  influence.  He  stood  for  something  outside  it,  some- 
thing outside  himself,  something  large,  vague,  turbulent, 
untried,  unplumbed,  unknown — the  People.  The  late- 
minted  word  Radical — which  when  the  Queen  came  to  the 
throne  had  only  meant  an  out-and-out  Reformer  of  the 
Franchise — had  taken  on  a  more  sinister  significance,  a 
brazen  resonance  of  strikes  and  trade-unions  and  the 
anarchy  of  Americanism,  since  Thomas  Marjorimont  had 
fallen  a-prophesying. 

And  the  paradox  was  that  he  was  not  of  the  mob  him- 
self. His  very  name  of  Marjorimont  was  an  index  of  kin- 
ship with  the  inner  gang  that  had  owned  and  ruled  Eng- 
land for  centuries,  and  at  whose  privileges  the  dreaded 
Reform  Bills  had  but  nibbled.  Fortune  did  her  best  to 
give  him  the  happy  life  of  a  rich  and  nobly  connected  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  but  he  wedded  himself  to  a  daughter  of 
the  people  as  well  as  to  democratic  principles,  and  in  de- 
spite of  these  leaden  drags  had  by  sheer  strength  of  genius 
and  honesty  forced  a  great  industrial  measure  on  a  kicking 
Tory  Cabinet,  and  himself  on  the  next  Whig  administra- 
tion, still  more  reluctant  to  let  in  upon  itself  the  on-sweep- 
ing flood  of  Radicalism.  But  he  bore  about  him  the  marks 
of  the  fight :  of  the  People's  long  distrust  of  a  Tory  sprig, 
whose  very  name  of  Marjorimont  with  its  pretentious  pro- 
nunciation as  Marchmont  was  a  lingual  tripping-rope, 
scarcely  removed  by  his  formally  spelling  it  Marshmont, 
as  it  was  most  easily  pronounced :  of  the  opposition  of  the 
Middle  Classes,  expressed  in  refusals  of  halls  for  him  to 
speak  in,  or  even  hotel  beds  for  him  to  sleep  in:  of  the 
hatred  of  his  own  order  for  a  "  traitor,"  acutest  in  his 
noble  relatives. 

The  late  hours  and  lifeless  air  of  the  House  of  Commons 
had  undermined  what  health  was  left  from  his  oratorical 
crusades,  and  lately  a  touch  of  unearned  hereditary  gout 

18 


"ELIJAH" 

— in  ironic  flouting  of  his  theories  of  life — had  added  itself 
to  a  well-earned  throat  disease. 

"  Oh,  there's  a  moth  here,  too."  And  Allegra  started 
up  in  distress,  chivying  it  away  from  the  chandelier. 
"  Please  forgive  me,  father ;  I  have  interrupted  you." 

"  No,  no.  I  am  glad  to  see  you  so  kind  to  the  lower 
creatures.  You  take  after  your  mother." 

"  But  aren't  you  kind,  too  ?" 

He  smiled.  "  I  wasn't  always.  Once  I  used  to  ride  to 
hounds." 

"  What,  and  see  foxes  torn  in  pieces — ugh !" 

"  Worse !     Poor  little  hares." 

"  I  should  never  have  believed  it  of  you." 

"  Ah !"  He  smiled  mysteriously.  "  You  evidently 
don't  read  the  Tory  papers." 

"  I  don't  read  any  papers ;  they're  so  dull  compared  to 
books." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Then  you  know  nothing  of  con- 
temporary history."  His  fingers  fondled  her  hair.  "  Curl- 
papers are  all  little  girls  want,  I  suppose." 

"  But  I  don't  use  curl-papers,"  she  said,  indignantly. 
"  It's  all  natural.  But  if  the  papers  speak  ill  of  you,  why 
do  you  want  more  of  them — cheaper  and  nastier  ones  ?" 

He  smiled.  "  Oh !  then  you  do  know  something  of 
contemporary  history."  Allegra  did  not  confess  she  owed 
all  her  information  to  Mabel's  letter,  and  he  went  on. 
"  But  think  how  selfish  it  would  be  of  me,  Allegra,  to  ob- 
ject to  the  growth  of  newspapers  merely  because  they 
might  disparage  me.  I  should  be  as  bad  as  Mr.  Dickens, 
who  warned  me  at  the  Reform  Club  that  we  should  only 
bring  upon  our  heads  the  same  flood  of  illiterate  vulgarity 
that  rages  in  the  untaxed  American  press.  He  was  vio- 
lently abused  in  the  States,  you  see." 

"  Was  he  ?  What  a  shame !  I  do  wish  you'd  bring  him 
in  one  day  instead  of  those  stupid  politicians."  She  had 
a  swift  vision  of  herself  surreptitiously  kissing  the  novel- 
ist's coat-tail,  and  perhaps  slipping  a  manuscript  into  it. 

19 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Her  father  laughed  heartily.  "  Thank  you,  thank  you, 
my  dear.  If  this  is  what  you  say  of  my  Whigs  and  Radi- 
cals, what  would  you  say  if  I  brought  you  Tories  ?" 

"  I  don't  suppose  I  should  see  any  difference.  They 
would  talk  of  amendments  and  divisions  just  the  same, 
wouldn't  they  ?" 

He  laughed  again.  "  But  what  were  we  talking 
about  ?" 

"  You  were  telling  me  you  used  to  hunt  poor  little 
hares." 

"  Don't  make  such  faces  at  me — if  I  hadn't,  you  would 
never  have  been  born." 

Allegra  shook  her  quill  at  him.  "  That's  not  hare,  that's 
Great  Seal." 

"No,  it's  true.  I  see  I've  cried  '  Wolf '  too  often,  and 
you  do  read  the  Tory  papers  after  all.  But  I  sometimes 
speak  the  truth  despite  them.  It  all  happened  when  I 
was  staying  at  Llangellan  Castle  in  the  beginning  of  my 
political  career,  before  it  had  dawned  on  the  old  Viscount 
what  a  red  Radical  I  was.  Now  I  am  as  hated  in  the 
county  as  if  I  had  shot  foxes.  Such  a  windy  November 
morning  it  was,  we  could  hardly  sit  our  saddles !  And  I 
can  still  see  Lady  Barbara,  a  slim  little  thing  my  people 
rather  wanted  me  to  marry,  bent  forward  like  a  reed.  But 
we  soon  started  a  hare,  and  off  we  flew  to  the  music  of 
hounds  and  horn."  A  note  of  the  old  Pagan  exultation 
crept  into  his  voice.  "  On  we  went  in  the  wind's  teeth,  up 
hill,  down  hill,  over  field  and  fence,  the  hare  running 
straight  and  extraordinarily  like  a  fox,  and  we  almost 
thought  it  would  give  the  dogs  leg-bail,  but  at  last  the  pack 
mobbed  it  in  a  patch  of  mangel-wurzel,  and  the  Master 
and  I  dashed  up  just  in  time  to  be  in  at  the  death.  But  we 
were  not.  A  tall,  beautiful  creature, with  flashing  eyes  like 
an  angry  wood-nymph,  flew  out  of  a  thicket,  and  with  her 
bare  hands  beat  off  the  bloodthirsty  dogs — I  never  saw 
anything  like  it  in  my  life — and  snatched  the  poor  scream- 
ing hare  to  her  bosom." 

20 


"  E  L I J  A  H  " 

"  Was  that  mother  ?"  cried  Allegra  breathlessly. 

"  Guessed  it  in  once." 

"  How  splendid !     But  didn't  the  dogs  fly  at  her  ?" 

"  No ;  they  just  skulked  biack.  You  see  harriers  are  used 
to  being  beaten  off  from  the  carcass  by  the  whippers-in, 
because  nothing  tastes  so  nice  as  hunted  hare.  But  had 
they  been  fox-hounds — ' 

"  And  that's  how  you  fell  in  love  with  her !" 

"  Fell  is  the  word.  Stronger  than  the  wind,  she  lifted 
me — metaphorically — out  of  my  saddle.  Indeed,  with 
her  hair  flying,  she  seemed  like  the  spirit  of  the  wind. 
And  how  she  lashed  out  at  us  in  Welsh,  no  more  afraid 
of  the  lord  of  the  manor  than  of  his  dogs.  I  didn't  under- 
stand a  word,  but  it  sounded  delicious.  I  wanted  her  to  go 
on  abusing  us." 

Allegra's  eyes  sparkled.  Here  was  unexpected  romance 
in  the  life  of  a  father  hitherto  associated  only  with  tire- 
some politics.  She  wished  she  had  time  to  pursue  the 
subject,  but  the  little  hands  of  the  wee  dial  of  the  great 
clock  were  marching  on.  Her  father's  business  might 
wait,  but  not  hers.  The  Muse  had  been  kind  till  the  new 
moth  appeared,  and  the  laurels  might  still  be  for  her  brow. 
But  as  she  dipped  her  pen  into  the  ink,  the  sprite  that  sug- 
gested verses  suggested  instead  the  speculation  as  to  what 
her  father  thought  of  Fame.  The  question  flowed  off  her 
tongue  involuntarily. 

"  What  do  I  think  of  Fame  ?"  He  looked  at  her  awhile 
quizzingly.  "  Ah,  that  is  a  question  you  should  put  to  Mr. 
Disraeli." 

"  But  I  know  what  he  thinks.  To  be  famous  when  you 
are  young  is  the  gift  of  the  gods.  How  I  should  like  to 
see  a  famous  man !" 

"  But  you  have  seen  the  Prime  Minister." 

Allegra's  lip  curled.  "  Oh,  I  don't  mean  men  like  that. 
I  mean  heroes.  Like  the  Duke  of  Wellington." 

"  That's  not  the  only  kind  of  hero." 

"  Of  course  not.     There's  Tennyson." 

21 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"Is  he  a  hero?" 

"  You  know  what  I  mean — a  great  man." 

"  What  is  your  idea  of  a  great  man  ?" 

Unused  to  such  Socratic  searchingness,  Allegra  check- 
ed the  reply  on  her  impulsive  tongue,  and  meditated,  with 
lips  adorably  puckered. 

"  A  great  man  is  one  who  works  for  the  world." 

What  "  working  for  the  world  "  was,  Allegra  did  not 
know  exactly,  but  it  was  something  that  went  to  the  sound 
of  music  and  the  throbbing  of  angelic  wings,  and  you 
walked  uplifted  in  a  great  light,  with  tears  in  your  eyes. 

The  great  Radical  surveyed  her  with  fresh  interest. 
She  had  developed  a  personality,  then,  while  he  was  not 
looking,  this  odd,  fascinating  child.  He  had  let  her  soul 
run  wild. 

"  And  you  think  soldiers  work  for  the  world  ?  I  should 
rather  say  they  provide  work  for  the  world — to  repair 
the  damage  they  do.  Have  you  ever  thought  what  war 
means,  Allegra  ?" 

"  It  means  glory." 

"  It  means  fifty  millions  on  the  National  Debt ;  it  means 
— "  Here  the  moth  Allegra  had  tried  to  save  fell  oppor- 
tunely. "  That's  what  it  means." 

"Oh,  poor  thing!"     Allegra  forgot  the  argument. 

"  Yes,"  said  her  father  sternly,  "  burnt  moths,  and  torn 
hares,  and  drowned  kittens,  and  all  that  you  detest.  How 
would  you  like  it  if  Chelsea  were  cannonaded  ?" 

"  Oh,  but  that's  impossible.  No  foreign  foe  can  set  foot 
on  British  soil.  The  last  time  it  saw  a  battle  was  a  century 
ago." 

"  And  the  next  time  may  be  next  year.  Bang !  comes 
a  bombshell  through  that  window.  It  explodes ;  my  head 
flies  through  the  ceiling;  yours  through  the  door,  and  the 
clock  up  the  chimney." 

"  You  are  joking." 

"  Joking  ?  Have  you  never  read  an  account  of  a  battle, 
a  siege  ?" 

22 


"ELIJAH" 

"  Of  course,"  she  said  resentfully,  yet  sinking  into  deep 
swamps  of  self-mistrust  under  this  continued  cross-exami- 
nation. "  I  know  all  about  the  siege  of  Troy,  and  the 
charge  of  the  Light  Brigade.  Doesn't  Milton  describe  it 
all?— 

'  Legions  and  cohorts,  turms  of  horse  and  wings.' 

And  then  there's  Ivanhoe — shining  steel,  and  banners, 
and  pawing  horses." 

"  Horses !  Yes,  poor  things.  Stabbed  with  bayonets 
and  disembowelled  with  cannon  balls  for  causes  they 
know  nothing  of.  Ah,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  the  horses 
we  must  make  an  end  of  war." 

She  sat  silenced,  athrob  with  new  thoughts.  He  re- 
sumed his  work.  "  But  you  don't  really  think  such  things 
could  happen  here  in  England  ?"  she  said  at  last. 

He  glanced  up.  "  Why  not  ?  What  immunity  has 
England  ?  In  any  case  war's  a  curse  that  comes  home 
to  roost.  I  saw  the  Queen  giving  away  the  Victoria 
Cross  at  the  Garden  of  the  Admiralty.  Officers  were 
wheeled  up  in  Bath  chairs.  Their  legs  had  been  shat- 
tered by  shells.  One  of  them  was  my  own  cousin  Nick 
Yeoford." 

Who  has  gauged  the  blindness  of  youth,  the  thick  scales 
of  inherited  or  insinuated  opinion,  the  unthinking  stupid- 
ity of  the  most  intelligent?  One  day  a  look,  a  touch — 
and  the  world  is  changed.  Scarred  and  medalled  soldiers 
had  figured  in  Allegra's  own  poems,  but  somehow  she  had 
never  really  thought  of  their  scars,  only  of  their  stars. 
War  had  been  a  pure  artistic  convention;  a  fine  aesthetic 
frenzy.  But  now  it  would  seem  one's  father's  cousin  might 
be  hacked  to  pieces. 

Allegra  always  counted  that  as  the  moment  in  which 
the  first  veil  of  happy  illusion  fell  from  her  eyes.  War 
was  not,  then,  an  exotic  nebulous  splendor,  but  a  thunder- 
cloud that  might  burst  over  one's  own  door,  in  this  dear, 
cozy  old  England,  amid  these  quiet  carpeted  houses,  dis- 

23 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

turbing  the  snug  succession  of  breakfast  and  dinner,  of 
Easter  and  Christmas,  and  mutilating  not  vague  foreign- 
ers, but  persons  one  actually  knew.  Her  mother,  Gwenny, 
Joan,  the  snub-nosed  page-boy,  the  polyglot  governess, 
burly  Wilson  the  coachman — each  and  all  might  become 
as  the  moth — formless,  limbless,  crawling  lop-sided  from 
the  hell  of  war.  Nay  more !  That  warm  breathing  flesh 
she  called  herself  might  be  stabbed  and  shattered.  The 
planet  lay  suddenly  bare  and  raw — a  brutal  arena  of  piti- 
less savagery.  But  she  shuddered  back  into  her  warm 
self,  into  the  domestic  snugness  of  the  drawing-room.  And 
all  that  was  left  of  that  brutally  vivid  moment  was  a  pale 
intellectual  deposit — a  conviction  that  it  was  impossible 
now  to  send  her  poem  to  the  Cornucopia.  It  was  full  of 
war — the  wrong  thing  glorified,  the  mischievous  con- 
cept transmitted.  How  if  it  won  and  was  published? — 
the  whole  world  might  be  infected.  Perhaps  that 
was  why  the  moths  had  been  sent  to  her,  she  thought 
mystically.  They  suffered,  to  stay  her  pen.  Pity 
for  them  and  her  ruined  hopes  gave  new  tears  to  her  eyes, 
a  swelling  as  of  hysteria  to  her  breast.  She  had  come  here 
to  save  her  poem  from  the  moths,  and  lo !  she  must  herself 
destroy  it.  She  gathered  up  her  papers  hastily. 

"  Good-night,  Allegra,"  he  murmured,  relapsed  into 
concentration.  But  she  felt  the  parting  inadequate  to  the 
new  relation  established  between  them  that  night:  the 
strings  seemed  already  loosening;  they  must  be  knotted. 
She  leaned  affectionately  over  his  shoulder,  stroking  it, 
and  letting  her  eye  rest  with  a  new  sympathy  on  his  manu- 
script : 

"  Her  Majesty's  justices  of  the  peace  and  for  the  county, 
riding,  division,  district,  borough,  parish . . .  . " 

From  war  to  justices  of  the  peace!  What  a  fall!  But 
then  if  war  were  sordid,  justices  of  the  peace  might  hold 
more  poetry  than  appeared  on  the  surface.  To  the  aid 

24 


"ELIJAH" 

of  this  argument  from  inversion  sprang  a  line  of  her  Mil- 
ton: 

"Peace  hath  her  victories  no   less  renowned  than  War." 

But  at  this  moment  she  became  aware,  by  some  subtle  in- 
stinct of  attraction,  that  her  mother  was  in  the  room.  She 
turned  her  head,  and  there  in  a  hastily  donned  red  wrapper 
stood  the  expected,  beautiful  figure,  the  white  rat  on  her 
shoulder. 


CHAPTER   III 
"  BELLONA  " 

SHE  had  eyes  like  a  gazelle,  and  was,  for  all  the  mar- 
ring of  the  years,  still  the  wood-nymph  of  the  windy 
morning.  Her  face  was  flower-soft  and  dark,  flashing  a 
hint  of  gypsy  blood.  She  carried  her  tall  figure  with  a 
sweet  dominating  dignity. 

Allegra  left  her  father  instantly  to  go  to  her.  The 
magnetism  her  mother  had  for  her  had  been  quickened 
by  the  story  of  the  hare.  She  was  about  to  express  her 
regret  if  her  voice  and  movements  had  awakened  her  moth- 
er, whose  bedroom  was  just  overhead,  but  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont  anticipated  her  crossly : 

"  Why  are  you  not  in  bed,  Allegra  ?" 

"  I  have  been  writing,  mother." 

"  Oh,  to  the  girls.  Gwenny  told  me  you  had  a  letter 
and  that  you  kept  it  to  yourself.  I  dare  say  it  makes  fun 
of  us." 

"  Oh,  mother,  how  can  you —  ?"  She  was  about  to 
produce  it,  when  she  remembered  the  reference  to  the 
Family  Skeleton.  She  colored,  feeling  tangled  in  a 
double  lie. 

"  How  can  I  ?  When  I  find  you  and  your  father  with 
your  heads  together — plotting  against  me!" 

"  My  dear  Mary!"  The  Minister  threw  a  deprecatory 
smile  over  his  shoulder.  "  Quite  the  contrary.  I  was  tell- 
ing Allegra  of  your  virtues." 

"  I  quite  understand  that  she  doubted  them."  Allegra 
quivered,  struck  speechless.  But,  as  a  cat  will  try  to  rub 
itself  against  those  who  swoon  at  its  presence,  she  tried  to 

26 


"BELLONA" 

take  her  mother's  hand.  Mrs.  Marshmont  pushed  her 
away  violently.  "  Go  to  bed !" 

Allegra  went  without  a  word,  hypnotized  by  this  im- 
perial Bellona,  but  choking  with  suppressed  sobs. 

"  And  don't  sit  up  writing  any  more  and  wasting  the 
gas  "  followed  her  out  of  the  door ;  and  behind  her,  as  she 
went  up  stairs,  came  the  reproach  to  her  father :  "  If  you 
were  so  desirous  to  speak  of  my  virtues,  Mr.  Mar-jor-i- 
mont,  I  was  ready  to  hear  them;  but  of  course  /  never 
hear  a  kind  word." 

The  Mar-jor-i-mont  was  fatal.  Allegra  knew  the  ill 
augury  of  this  mispronunciation  of  him  as  an  aristocratic 
alien  with  whom  his  own  wife  had  no  rights  of  familiar 
speech.  Poor  father,  poor  mother,  poor  poem,  poor  moths, 
poor  Allegra!  Life  was  all  at  sixes  and  sevens.  War? 
What  was  Peace  ?  She  thought  she  knew  now  why  her 
imagination  had  always  played  with  banners  and  trumpets. 
Anything  to  escape  this  squabbling  sordid  atmosphere,  the 
flippancies  of  her  sisters,  the  suspected  peculations  of  cooks 
and  page-boys.  She  had  always  lived  alone,  alone  with 
her  visions.  Perhaps  "  'twere  better  done  as  others  use," 
to  sit  out  dances  in  moonlit  quadrangles.  But  even 
then  there  were  colds.  She  was  trembling  violently  as 
she  mounted  the  two  flights,  but  she  clinched  her  teeth, 
resolved  not  to  let  this  yearning  to  scream  terrify  the 
household. 

Outside  Joan's  door  she  could  not  resist  crying :  "  Joan, 
are  you  asleep  ?" 

"  Of  course  I  am,"  grumbled  Joan.  "  What  do  you 
mean  by  waking  me  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night  ?" 

"  I  wanted  to  tell  you — I  am  not  going  to  take  any  more 
fencing-lessons." 

The  statement  surprised  herself,  but  when  she  had  utter- 
ed it,  she  saw  she  meant  it.  She  must  metaphorically 
beat  her  foil  into  a  ploughshare :  it  had  kindled  her  imagi- 
nation with  false  lights. 

"  Cock-a-hoop  again !"  Joan  sneered.  "  You  think 

27 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

because  you  touched  the  Swedish  Turnip  yesterday,  you 
could  challenge  the  Three  Musketeers." 

The  Swedish  Turnip  was  the  nickname  of  their  fencing- 
master,  a  ruddy  Swede,  but  Allegra  was  as  surprised  at 
Joan's  reply  as  at  her  own  remark.  The  misconception 
touched  her  sense  of  humor;  her  nervous  currents  passed 
off  in  a  prolonged  laugh. 

"  Crow  away !"  said  Joan.  "  But  wait  till  Jim  comes 
home.  He'll  take  you  down." 

"  We  shall  see.  Good-night."  She  went  to  her  room, 
smiling  and  relieved,  not  troubling  even  to  strike  a  light. 
But  that  beautiful  moon  shone  on  her  as  she  knelt  at  her 
bedside,  a  sweet  penitent  in  white. 

"  O  God,"  she  added  extemporaneously,  "  teach  me 
to  win  back  my  mother's  love,  and  teach  her  to  be  as  gentle 
to  my  father  as  she  is  to  hares  and  rats.  Teach  me  what 
is  Truth,  what  is  Right.  And  O  teach  the  silly  moths  to 
fear  the  flame." 


CHAPTER    IV 
HOME   POLITICS 

WITH  a  heavy  sigh  the  Minister  rose  from  his  work, 
pushed  back  his  spectacles,  and  confronted  his  wife. 

"  You  are  vexed  because  I  am  working,"  he  said  gently. 
"  But  it  is  very  important,  this  Bill — it  is  really,  Mary." 

"  But  you  have  time  for  Allegra !" 

"  Allegra  did  not  disturb  me." 

"  Oh,  and  I  do." 

"  Don't  be  so  unreasonable,  sweetheart.  Allegra  came 
down  here  to  write.  If  I  had  come  up  to  you,  this  draft- 
ing- 

"  What's  your  Honorable  Andrew  for  ?" 

"  He's  not  very  well.  I've  worked  him  very  hard  at  the 
Office." 

"  Oh,  of  course !  Because  he's  your  relation,  he  is  to  be 
cockered  and  pampered.  My  relations  may  starve." 

"  I  thought  we  had  done  with  that." 

"  No,  we  haven't  done  with  that !  What's  the  use  of 
being  a  Cabinet  Minister's  wife  if  you  can't  throw  a  little 
patronage  to  your  own  kith  and  kin  ?  Look  at  Lady  Tre- 
ville,  with  her  godsons — only  related  to  her  by  water !" 

"  My  dear,  you  never  will  understand  these  things.  If 
you  are  still  harping  on  young  Evanston,  I've  told  you  I'd 
rather  give  him  a  hundred  a  year  out  of  my  own  pocket." 

"  Out  of  my  pocket,  you  mean." 

He  waved  his  hand.  "  But  it  shall  not  be  from  the 
State's  pocket." 

"  As  if  the  State  knew  what's  in  its  pocket !  Except 
everybody's  hands !" 

29 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  All  the  more  reason  for  keeping  ours  out.  I  am  sorry, 
Mary,  but  I  can't  discuss  these  things  with  you." 

"  I  know ;  there  is  nothing  you  can  discuss  with  me. 
I'm  not  wanted ;  I  might  as  well  be  dead." 

He  drew  nearer  to  her  and  put  into  his  voice  the  caress 
he  had  not  the  courage  to  attempt  otherwise.  "  Dearest, 
you  know  it's  my  only  joy  that  you  are  alive." 

She  softened,  and  there  was  a  half -sob  in  her  voice.  "  It 
doesn't  seem  so.  When  once  in  the  blue  moon  you  do  get 
home  before  midnight,  you  sneak  in  like  a  thief ;  you  never 
dream  of  me.  If  it  isn't  writing,  it's  reading." 

"  I  thought  you  would  be  asleep.  You  see,  the  House 
got  counted  out — the  enemy  caught  us  napping.  It  was 
vexatious,  of  course,  but  I  consoled  myself  with  the  thought 
of  a  quiet  hour's  work — " 

"  I  should  have  thought  the  day  was  long  enough." 

"  At  the  Office  there  is  always  so  much  to  do :  oceans 
of  correspondence,  answers  to  members'  questions  to  be  got 
ready  for  the  afternoon,  and  this  morning  a  pig-headed 
deputation  of  Tory  farmers  into  the  bargain !  And  at  the 
House  it's  worse.  There's  a  fever  in  the  air,  half  the  time 
I  have  to  be  in  my  place  listening  or  speaking,  and  even 
when  I  do  settle  myself  in  my  den,  I  have  to  rush  upstairs 
whenever  the  Division  bell  rings.  Ah,  my  dear,  the 
Treasury  Bench  is  not  so  far  from  the  galley  bench." 

"  Lord  Huston  seems  to  thrive  on  it.  His  wife  told  me 
he  never  gets  up  till  noon." 

"  The  Foreign  Office  is  a  fixed  tradition.  Claridge 
really  does  the  work,  though  the  public  has  never  heard  of 
him.  Huston  has  only  to  take  the  credit ;  that  can  be  done 
in  the  afternoons." 

"  But  you've  got  a  permanent  official,  too." 

"  That's  what  makes  so  much  work,"  he  said  dryly.  "  I 
will  not  be  swaddled  in  red  tape.  The  precious  hours  I 
waste  in  listening  to  legends  of  my  predecessors !" 

"  I  don't  care  how  it  is,"  she  said  plaintively.  "  I  see 
less  and  less  of  you  every  year." 

30 


HOME    POLITICS 

"  I  know  it's  very  hard  on  you."  He  ventured  to  caress 
the  rat  on  her  shoulder,  as  a  first  step  towards  caressing 
her. 

"  When  you  were  a  mere  member  you  managed  to  come 
home  for  dinner,  despite  the  Whips.  Now  you  are  a  lord 
and  master — 

"  Ah,  but  I  could  pair  then." 

"  And  why  can't  you  pair  now  ?" 

"  If  I  did,  my  vote  wouldn't  be  counted  unto  me  for 
righteousness." 

"  Ridiculous !  A  parcel  of  old  women's  rules.  A  Min- 
ister oughtn't  to  have  to  vote  at  all — it's  understood  he's 
with  the  Government." 

He  smiled.  "  That  would  be  common-sense — not  the 
British  Constitution.  The  Premier  himself  has  no  legal 
existence."  His  hand  slipped  from  the  rat  to  her  shoulder, 
and  lay  there  tenderly.  He  felt  easier  in  the  conversation- 
al level  to  which  the  quarrel  had  fallen. 

But  Mrs.  Marshmont  had  abrupt  resources.  "  And  then 
people  tell  me  I  ought  to  consider  myself  lucky!"  she 
cried,  bursting  into  tears  and  sinking  into  her  easy-chair. 

It  was  an  uneasy  easy-chair,  in  harmony  with  the  clock 
and  the  leg  of  the  table.  Each  arm  consisted  of  a  dog,  the 
right  rampant,  the  left  couchant.  On  this  odd  throne 
Mrs.  Marshmont  would  sit,  patting  the  carved  dogs  as  if 
they  were  alive,  while  her  rat  ran  over  them  in  the  joyous 
security  of  their  deadness. 

Her  husband  knelt  beside  her,  and  put  his  face  to  hers, 
as  if  to  share  her  tears.  She  did  not  repulse  him. 

"  I  know  it's  very  hard  on  you,"  he  repeated.  "  But, 
sweetheart,  a  Minister  is  not  his  own  master.  I  don't  see 
how  it's  to  be  helped." 

"  No,"  she  admitted  lugubriously.  "  Now  you  need 
the  money." 

He  winced,  and  his  face  drew  away  from  hers,  with  a 
flush  as  swift  as  Allegra's.  This  self-suspicion  that  per- 
haps the  salary  had  been  a  factor  in  his  acceptance  of  a  seat 

31 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

in  the  Cabinet  poisoned  his  rare  moments  of  human  pleas- 
ure in  the  position.  He  had  been  so  against  it  at  the  out- 
set: it  seemed  dishonorable  to  take  office  from  a  Premier 
he  had  denounced.  But  his  friends,  almost  to  a  man,  were 
insistent.  He  owed  it  to  the  country,  to  his  followers,  to 
himself.  It  was  the  proverbial  thin  edge  of  the  wedge. 
Through  him,  this  great  force  of  the  future,  Radicalism, 
would  enter  for  the  first  time  into  the  inmost  councils  of 
the  Nation.  The  British  Constitution,  like  Nature,  did 
not  make  leaps.  You  could  not  expect  earthquakes.  A 
complete  Radical  Cabinet  could  not  grow  up  in  one  night 
like  Jonah's  gourd.  Once  inside  the  Whig  Cabinet  he 
could  wake  it  up,  snap  fingers  at  the  dukes.  His  mere 
presence  would  tinge  the  whole:  a  drop  of  live  red  blood 
in  a  cup  of  ditch  water.  And  then  what  gnashing  of  teeth 
in  the  Tory  camp  when  fronted  with  a  coalition  of  Whigs 
and  Radicals,  in  an  invincible  Liberal  Party!  And  to 
these  serpentine  arguments  his  Continental  friends  had 
added  by  cable,  eager  to  have  a  lover  of  mankind  in  the 
forging-place  of  British  thunder-bolts. 

He  had  given  in.  He  had  accepted  the  apple  and 
munched  it  on  the  Treasury  Bench.  But  there  was  a 
worm  at  the  heart  of  it.  He  had  exiled  himself  from  the 
Paradise  of  Independence.  The  direct  opposition  of  the 
Tories  was  a  spur,  but  this  purring  of  friends,  this  mur- 
muring of  compromise  and  conciliation,  above  all  this 
courteous  disregard  of  him  at  the  Council  Table,  chafed  his 
soul.  The  Premier  sat  bland,  genial,  surrounded  with  tra- 
ditions and  respect.  With  a  few  henchmen  he  ruled  all. 
Even  the  dukes  had  only  the  privilege  of  agreeing  with 
him,  however  imposing  their  names  on  the  prospectus,  how- 
ever autocratic  their  Departmental  sway. 

"  Wait,  wait,"  the  Marshmontites  whispered.  "  You 
are  paving  the  way  for  a  real  Radical  Party." 

"  I  am  paving  hell,"  he  retorted.  He  tried,  like  the 
dukes,  to  find  consolation  in  his  Department,  but  the  for- 
malism of  the  staff  was  wearing,  especially  in  its  in- 

32 


sidious  resistance  to  innovations,  new  and  untried  policies. 
He  hated  the  beautifully  written  documents  presented  to 
him  for  signature,  not  dissection. 

But  of  all  this  his  wife  knew  little.  Of  a  poor  Welsh 
family,  with  a  corresponding  education,  mitigated  by  a 
love  of  Shakspere — the  medium  through  which  her  lover 
had  taught  her  English — she  had  scarcely  higher  ideals 
than  the  gypsies  whose  blood  she  suggested.  Her  value 
lay  in  the  realms  of  the  unconscious ;  she  was  magnificent- 
ly elemental. 

If  she  sometimes  betrayed  herself  in  society,  it  was  never 
a  betrayal  of  vulgarity.  She  gave  the  air,  not  of  lacking 
breeding,  but  of  being  a  law  unto  herself.  Thomas  Marsh- 
mont,  too,  was  autonomous,  and  like  all  men  who  marry 
half -mates,  he  lived  his  intellectual  life  apart,  and  this  soli- 
tude was  become  so  habitual  by  the  time  his  children  grew 
up,  that  they  had  never  occurred  to  him  as  companions. 
Besides,  they  were  mostly  daughters,  and  girls  seemed  to 
him  merely  extensions  and  reduplications  of  their  mother's 
personality,  annexes  to  her  individuality,  if  not,  indeed, 
proofs  of  its  predominance  over  his.  The  elder  boy  had 
passed  from  Harrow  to  Cambridge ;  the  younger,  Jim, 
was  at  Harrow  now.  And  so  this  feverish,  strenuous  polit- 
ical life  of  his,  vibrant  with  passions,  clanging  with  tu- 
mults, girdled  with  wild  hopes  and  fierce  hatreds,  colored 
with  historic  episodes,  had  been  lived  alone. 

In  the  early  days  when  he  was  fevering  the  provinces 
with  great  speeches,  he  would  pass  from  a  throbbing 
triumph  to  a  cold  railway  carriage  or  a  chill  hotel-bed. 
Even  now  his  own  house  was  only  another  hotel,  with  a 
faithful  feminine  clientele.  It  was  pleasant  to  see  the 
same  faces,  but  he  did  not  talk  politics  at  the  board.  That 
he  occasionally  made  a  famous  speech  in  the  House  his 
wife  learnt  from  Gwenny,  who  alone  read  a  newspaper. 
He  made  no  more  of  it  all  than  a  business  man  makes 
of  his  day's  doings,  and  in  the  same  spirit  his  wife  had 
been  down  twice  to  see  him  at  work — once  in  the  old 

33 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

House,  where  she  was  stuck  like  a  ceiling  decoration  over 
the  hot,noisome  chandelier,  and  once  in  the  new  and  more 
commodious  premises. 

And  now  if  she  rudely  reminded  him  of  the  profits  of 
the  business,  could  he  wonder  ?  He  replied,  more  to  con- 
vince himself  than  her : 

"  The  money  doesn't  count  at  all.  If  it  were  the  money, 
I'd  gladly  give  up  twice  as  much  to  save  you  an  hour's 
pain." 

She  laughed,  softened.  "  You  silly  old  thing !  That 
would  give  me  twice  as  much  pain.  You  always  forget 
I  have  to  manage  on  the  money." 

It  was  one  of  her  delusions — based  upon  occasional 
capricious  economies — that  she  administered  his  finances 
like  a  chancellor  of  genius;  in  verity,  she  dissipated  his 
substance  on  a  scale  proportioned  to  her  ideas  of  what 
befitted  a  family  related  to  the  peerage. 

He  leaned  his  face  again  to  hers,  and  she  wept  again. 

"  We  were  happier  at  Hazelhurst.  Why  couldn't  you 
have  remained  a  country  gentleman  ?" 

He  forbore  to  explain.  At  first  he  had  imagined  that 
the  divine  instinct  which  urged  her  to  rescue  hares  was  of 
a  piece  with  that  which  urged  him  to  save  mankind,  but 
he  was  soon  disillusioned  and  permanently  puzzled  by 
psychological  contradictions  he  had  not  the  temperament 
to  analyze  away.  He  did  not  see  that  the  crude,  visible, 
physical  fact  touched  a  highly  sensitive  nerve-system,  while 
complex  mental  suffering  or  a  large  outlook  found  no  ap- 
paratus of  sympathetic  registration  in  her  elemental  nat- 
ure. He  said  evasively :  "  We'll  have  our  holiday  at 
Hazelhurst,  if  you  like." 

She  clapped  her  hands  childishly :  "  Yes,  let's  go  down 
— you  and  I  alone — to  the  woods  and  waters.  Let's  go 
Saturday." 

"  I  meant  when  the  session's  over." 

She  pouted.     "  Then  let's  go  Saturday  to  Monday." 

"  You  forget  the  Huston  dinner." 

34 


HOME    POLITICS 

"  Can't  you  cut  that  ?" 

"  I  wish  I  could.  The  reception  is  official.  You  know 
how  I  hate  my  Court  dress." 

She  pushed  his  head  away.  "  You  love  it  more  than  me. 
You  never  will  do  the  least  thing  I  ask  you." 

"  When  you  ask  me  something  reasonable — 

"  I  won't  go  to  Huston's — I  won't  go  in  to  dinner  after 
Lady  Trumper.  It's  too  mortifying,  a  woman  whose 
father  was  an  apothecary.  Your  family  is  of  the  best  in 
the  land." 

"  But  I  am  not  the  rose,  if  I  live  near  it.  Two  lives  are 
between  me  and  the  peerage — good  sound  lives,  thank 
Heaven." 

"  But  even  the  nobodies  crow  over  me.  Mrs.  North 
has  the  Queen's  permission  to  drive  down  Constitution 
Hill." 

Her  very  pettiness  gave  her  an  artless  witchery — won- 
derful in  a  woman  of  her  years.  He  kissed  her  eyes.  "  I 
had  rather  see  you  driving  down  Hazelhurst  Hill." 

"  Then  why  won't  you  go  ?"  she  said,  less  fretfully. 
"  We'll  take  the  mid-day  train.  You  shall  have  a  whole 
morning's  work  with  your  stupid  papers." 

"  Impossible,  dearest.  You  forget  this  stupid  paper." 
He  pointed  with  a  conciliatory  smile  to  the  formal  sum- 
mons :  "  Sir,  you  are  requested  to  attend  a  meeting  of  Her 
Majesty's  servants  on  Saturday  at  twelve  o'clock  at  10 
Downing  Street." 

"  Oh,  bother  the  Cabinet  Council !  They  can  do  with- 
out you." 

"  There  you  are  right,"  he  said,  bitterly. 

"  Then  we'll  go — yes  ?"  she  cried,  joyous. 

He  winced  again.  Nothing  could  mark  more  sharply 
her  alienation  from  his  real  life.  He  replied  softly  but 
sadly.  "  But,  darling,  I  must  be  at  the  Council  all  the 
same.  The  war  spirit  is  gaining  on  this  country — our 
own  Allegra  has  imbibed  the  poison — and  I  believe,  but 
this  of  course  you  mustn't  breathe  to  a  soul,  we  shall  have 

35 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

fights  over  the  navy  and  Novabarba.  I  may  not  be  able 
to  effect  much,  but  protest  I  must.  Who  knows  ?  I  may 
save  the  country  a  score  of  millions." 

"  The  country !  The  country !"  She  sprang  up,  and 
her  voice  rose  too.  "  Your  own  fortune  goes  to  ducks 
and  drakes  for  want  of  management." 

"  There  isn't  so  very  much  to  manage."  He  smiled 
wistfully. 

"  But  I  have  to  manage  on  it — and  even  give  dinner 
parties  to  your  political  friends." 

There  was  a  note  of  hysteria  now.  He  tried  the  humor- 
ous. "  Well,  Mary,  you  don't  want  to  give  them  to  my 
enemies." 

But  she  was  the  one  woman  in  the  world  his  smile  could 
not  soothe;  also  she  had  no  sense  of  humor,  a  fact  which 
her  husband  should  have  known  by  this  time.  "  Oh,  yes, 
make  fun  of  me."  Her  eyes  flashed  fire;  the  beady  eyes 
of  the  rat  on  her  shoulder  seemed  to  glitter  sympathet- 
ically. 

"  My  darling,  be  sensible,"  he  pleaded,  alarmed. 

He  wished  to  stroke  her  hair,  but  lacking  the  courage, 
he  again  stroked  the  rat.  But  she  rejected  the  overture, 
plucking  the  rat  away  and  setting  it  down  on  the  table. 

He  snatched  his  papers  from  under  the  rodent's  feet, 
and  crammed  them  into  the  despatch-box.  The  action  ag- 
gravated her  wrath. 

"  Sensible !"  she  shrieked.  "  If  I  had  been  sensible, 
I  never  should  have  married  you." 

The  shriek  hurt  him  more  than  the  sentiment.  He 
hoped  she  had  not  changed  her  servants  recently.  Gwen- 
ny's  stability  in  a  world  of  flux  was  a  background  of  com- 
fort, like  a  permanent  secretary  to  an  easy-going  minister. 
He  did  not  know  that  this  strange  wife  of  his  ruled  servant- 
dom  like  a  queen,  was  the  fetich  of  the  kitchen,  and  the 
adored  of  the  dismissed  and  downtrodden.  He  himself, 
tamed  and  contrite,  said  humbly,  "  I  am  sorry  my  work 
has  spoiled  your  life.  I  should  never  have  married  you." 

36 


HOME    POLITICS 

What  indeed  had  he  given  her  in  return  for  the  joy  of  her 
beauty  and  wild  grace,  for  the  birth-pangs  she  had  en- 
dured ? 

But  she,  misunderstanding :  "  And  didn't  I  tell  you  to 
marry  your  Lady  Barbara,  Mr.  Mar-jor-i-mont  ?  Oh,  I 
might  have  known  it — a  man  who  sets  the  dogs  on  animals, 
what  pity  could  he  have  for  a  woman  ?" 

She  delivered  her  words  dramatically,  raising  her  hands, 
unashamed  of  the  midnight  and  the  household,  like  a  Mrs. 
Siddons  playing  to  an  audience  and  perfectly  in  the  normal 
order.  No  shrewish  vulgarity,  only  the  high  dignity  of 
the  tragedienne.  Allegra,  lying  sleepless  in  the  heat,  with 
the  sheets  thrown  off,  heard  her — with  a  novel  transfer- 
ence of  sympathy  to  the  poor  statesman.  She  had  listen- 
ed to  her  mother's  grievances  so  often  that  she  took  their 
truth  for  granted,  convicting  her  silent  father  by  his  de- 
fault. She  waited  tremblingly  for  hysterical  develop- 
ments, but  instead,  to  her  wonder  and  joy,  fell  a  blessed 
peace. 

It  came  from  a  twinge  of  the  gout,  which  caught  the 
Minister  as  (in  the  lack  of  anything  to  say)  he  locked  his 
despatch-box  with  the  precious  key  on  his  watch-chain. 
The  groan  he  could  not  repress  was  the  salvation  of  the  sit- 
uation. Instantly  Mrs.  Marshmont  had  him  lying  back  in 
her  own  arm-chair  between  the  two  carved  dogs,  while  his 
right  foot  lay  prone  on  the  masculine  easy-chair,  whose 
arms  had  pendent  fringes  and  looked  like  Brobdingnagiau 
clothes-brushes. 

"  Does  fanwylyd  [my  darling]  feel  easier  now  ?"  she 
cooed.  But  somehow  for  once  her  sympathy  failed  to 
soothe  him:  she  had  excited  acuter  pangs  than  physical. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  busy  unselfish  career  he  found 
himself  wondering  what  life  would  have  been  like  with  a 
wife  that  understood.  It  was  a  thought  his  loyal  bosom 
had  not  lodged,  even  in  face  of  the  obvious  devotion  of 
other  wives  to  their  husbands'  Parliamentary  careers; 
careers  not  always  dignified  by  unworldly  aspiration. 

37 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

But  he  must  bear  his  burden  alone — or  only  with  God's 
whispered  help.  Perhaps  it  was  the  death  of  Bryden, 
his  chief  companion-in-arms,  that  gave  him  this  new  con- 
sciousness of  solitude.  He  had  not  realized  how  Bryden 
had  filled  the  void  in  his  soul,  Bryden  the  golden-mouthed, 
Bryden  the  Berserker  of  Peace.  They  had  not  been  close 
comrades  in  the  flesh,  but  their  spirits  were  knit.  He 
thought  of  him  now  with  tears — "  passing  the  love  of 
women." 


CHAPTEK   V 
TOM 

THE  War  Spirit  continued  to  pursue  the  Right  Honor- 
able Thomas  Marshmont  with  its  irony. 

When  the  girls  returned  from  Cambridge,  they  brought 
Tom  Marshmont  back  with  them.  He  had  succeeded  ig- 
nominiously  in  his  examinations,  but  he  was  the  envied  of 
some  who  had  taken  honors,  and  who  had  now  to  pass  from 
the  cloisters  to  the  world.  In  that  unpleasant  period 
when  life  uplifts  its  crude  question-mark,  and  consulted 
tutors  murmur  vague  commonplaces,  his  contemporaries 
saw  Tom  Marshmont  as  secretary,  consul,  inspector,  gover- 
nor, attache,  diplomatist,  future  ambassador,  anything, 
everything,  his  paternity  being  supposed  to  cover  a  multi- 
tude of  pickings.  He,  however,  saw  himself  in  only  one 
role — officer  in  a  crack  regiment.  Csesar  was  the  one  pen- 
man of  the  classics  who  had  interested  him  and  made  him 
understand  that  blooded  lips  really  spoke  Latin  once. 

No  ambition  could  have  been  more  distressing  to  his 
father,  brought  violently  down  from  his  world-schemes 
to  face  another  crisis  in  his  own  family.  It  was  the  last 
thing  he  had  expected  of  his  boy,  though  to  outsiders  the 
fresh-skinned,  breezy  giant  was  cut  out  by  nature  for  a 
guardsman. 

The  inevitable  interview  took  place  at  the  top  of  the 
house  in  the  garret  which  had  begun  life  as  a  nursery  and 
was  now  the  study  of  a  Al  inister  of  state.  Before  the  chil- 
dren had  grown  too  big  for  it,  the  great  Radical — in  the 
fiercest  years  of  his  political  strife — had  done  all  his  writ- 
ing and  thinking  in  the  common  drawing-room,  and  his 

39 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Blue  Books  and  Hansards  lay  about  him  higgledy-piggle- 
dy. It  was  one  way  of  being  with  his  children  and  of  pla- 
cating his  wife ;  and  they  ignored  and  interrupted  his  work 
at  will.  He  in  his  gentle  unselfishness  made  no  personal 
claim,  demanded  no  special  attention.  But  the  advent 
of  a  private  secretary  made  it  necessary  to  live  up  to  this 
gentleman's  title,  and  so  the  deserted  garret  was  re-discov- 
ered and  swept  out.  But  the  original  furniture  was  still 
there,  nor  had  any  one  troubled  to  remove  the  pictorial 
scraps  pasted  on  the  wall  by  the  nurse-maids.  He  wrote 
on  the  table  at  which  his  progeny  had  taken  their  tea  and 
jam,  and  if  a  pigeon-hole  adorned  the  wall,  it  was  of  the 
secretary's  fixing.  In  the  corner  unregarded  stood  a  large, 
ill-groomed  rocking-horse  with  faded  stripes  and  a  moulted 
tail,  and  under  his  belly  a  battered  regiment  of  tin  soldiers 
stood  at  ease  or  lay  careless,  in  a  truce  that  had  lasted  since 
Tom's  childhood  (for  Master  Jim  had  preferred  the  re- 
version of  his  sisters'  dolls). 

The  fat  bullfinch  that  piped  in  its  little  round  white- 
barred  cage  at  the  window  was  the  only  expression  of  the 
Minister's  own  personality,  for  this  bullfinch  was  as  much 
with  him  as  the  rat  with  his  wife,  or  the  Great  Seal  with 
the  Chancellor  of  Allegra's  infantile  imagination.  But, 
unlike  the  rat,  which  had  been  picked  out  by  its  mistress 
as  a  pet,  the  bullfinch  had  picked  out  the  head  of  the  house- 
hold from  among  the  general  members,  and  had  developed 
from  a  parlor  ornament  into  a  personality.  It  fell  in  love 
with  the  Minister,  and  sang  its  happiest  in  his  presence, 
and  gradually  enforced  equal  recognition  from  his  reluc- 
tant attention.  It  hopped  on  his  writing-table  by  day,  and 
was  removed  to  his  bedroom  by  night,  where  it  slept  in  its 
cage  under  the  shade  of  a  silken  bandanna.  Nothing  made 
it  so  spiteful  as  to  be  fooled  by  Dulsie  masquerading  in  her 
father's  hat  and  spectacles.  After  a  moment  of  ecstasy, 
it  would  open  its  mouth  and  hiss,  its  feathers  flat  with 
anger.  Its  presence  brightened  the  garret,  which,  for  the 
rest,  was  far  pleasanter  than  the  Minister's  sunless  den  in 

40 


TOM 

the  House  of  Commons,  especially  when  the  warm  morn- 
ing light  sent  long  gold-dusty  beams  through  the  many- 
paned  casement  and  inspired  the  bird  to  sing.  What  won- 
der if  this  study  still  remained  the  arena  for  Joan  and 
Allegra's  fencing-lessons,  the  Swedish  Turnip's  hours 
being  fixed  not  to  clash  with  the  Minister's,  and  the  central 
writing-table  being  rudely  shifted  to  the  region  of  the  rock- 
ing-horse. 

It  was  a  bitterer  fencing-match  that  the  garret  was  now 
witnessing,  the  tragic  contest  of  father  and  son. 

"  I  never  thought  my  own  boy  would  hurt  me  like  this," 
said  the  Minister,  with  a  sigh. 

"  My  dear  father !"  the  young  man  retorted,  in  an  in- 
sulted but  not  insulting  tone,  "  if  you  knew  what  I  have 
had  to  suffer  from  your  speeches!  The  chaff  I've  been 
subjected  to!  Every  time  there's  been  a  cartoon  in 
Punch—" 

"  You  take  Punch  seriously !"  his  father  interrupted 
sarcastically.  "  Why,  even  the  ladies  stick  to  their  crino- 
lines!" 

"  It's  got  to  be  taken  seriously.  All  these  skits  about 
the  Peace  Party,  and  the  way  they're  putting  L.S.D.  on 
the  Arms  of  England,  supplanting  the  Lion  and  the  Uni- 
corn by  the  hare  and  the  puppy.  People  take  you  for  a 
Quaker,  sir,  'pon  my  honor  they  do." 

"  Nonsense !  Everybody  knows  the  Marshmonts  are 
Church  of  England." 

"  How  are  they  to  know  ?     You  don't  go  to  church,  sir." 

"  I  had  not  observed  your  own  zeal  in  that  direction. 
You  didn't  even  come  down  to  prayers  this  morning." 

"  I  can't  endure  your  mutilation  of  the  service.  The 
Prayer  Book  must  be  discarded,  forsooth,  to  please  Gwen- 
ny!" 

"  And  your  mother,  Tom,"  his  father  reminded  him 
mildly.  "  That  was  our  compromise.  And  it  was  very 
good  of  her,  reared  as  she  was  in  that  fanatical  Calvin- 
istic  Methodism,  to  agree  to  sit  in  the  Marshmont  pew  at 

41 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Hazelhurst  Church.  And  that  reminds  me  that  your 
accusation  is  only  true  as  regards  London.  No,  no ;  I  am 
proud  to  count  Quakers  among  my  friends,  but  nobody 
could  possibly  imagine  we  were  Quakers  ourselves." 

"  Everybody  knows  who  and  what  the  Mar-jor-i-monts 
are,  but  Marshmont  is  another  pair  of  shoes."  The  father 
winced,  reminded  of  his  wife's  "  Mar-jor-i-mont,"  and  too 
pained  by  this  new  issue  to  remonstrate.  "  Our  name  has 
been  defaced  out  of  all  recognition.  It's  like  pulling  down 
a  wing  of  an  old  house.  A  Mar-jor-i-mont  is  a  fellow  who 
serves  king  and  country ;  a  Marshmont  you  can  quite  figure 
in  a  broad-brimmed  hat  and  drab  toggery,  like  that  Quaker 
chap  who  said  he  was  tired  of  the  British  Lion." 

"  And  who  never  wore  a  broad-brimmed  hat  in  his  life," 
said  the  father  dryly. 

"  I  go  by  Punch." 

"  In  which  Palmerston  always  sucks  a  straw." 

"  I  don't  care  a  straw  about  the  details.  I  go  by  the 
broad  fact." 

"  The  broad-brimmed  fiction,  you  mean." 

Tom  smiled.  "  I  always  heard  you  were  good  at  Parlia- 
mentary repartee,  sir.  But  the  fact  remains  that  up  at 
Cambridge  a  cad  once  tried  to  '  thee '  me  in  his  talk. 
Perhaps  he  expected  me  to  turn  the  other  cheek.  He  cer- 
tainly didn't  expect  to  see  his  nose  run  claret." 

"  You  were  right  to  assert  yourself,  my  boy.  But  the  ex- 
ploits of  our  ancestors  do  not  commend  themselves  to  me." 

"  Not  Sir  Rupert's  at  Marston  Moor  against  the  Round- 
heads ?  Not  the  first  earl's  at  Malplaquet  ?  You  don't 
see  the  beauty  of  a  pedigree  like  that  ?" 

"  I  prefer  to  think  of  the  few  scholars  and  divines  be- 
hind us.  Physical  courage,  no  doubt,  some  of  our  pro- 
genitors had,  in  moments  of  bellicose  intoxication ;  but  I 
question  if  they  had  the  higher  nobility  of  every-day  chiv- 
alry. At  any  rate  I  desire  to  see  our  own  branch  of  tjie 
family  carrying  on  the  work  of  civilization,  not  of  bar- 
barism." 

42 


TOM 

Tom  gasped :  "  Barbarism !  No  wonder  they  call  you 
a  Quaker !" 

"  Whatever  they  call  me,  I  desire  to  continue  to  call  you 
my  son."  There  was  a  tense  silence.  The  neglected  bull- 
finch on  the  writing-table  seized  the  opportunity  to  recall 
itself  to  its  master.  It  made  its  pretty  little  cooing  noise 
— one  low  note,  one  high  note.  In  vain. 

"  Is  this  a  threat,  sir  ?"  asked  Tom  at  last,  in  a  quiet 
voice. 

"  Not  at  all,  Tom.  I  had  hoped  you  would  carry  on  my 
work,  be  a  true  son  to  me." 

"  I  am  sorry,  sir.  Elijah's  mantle  doesn't  fit  me.  The 
soldier's  uniform  does." 

His  father's  head  drooped  hopelessly.  "  I  thought 
Harrow  would  have  liberalized  you  more,"  he  murmured. 

"  Is  that  why  I  didn't  go  to  Eton  ?" 

"  Partly." 

He  sniffed  sarcastically.  "  But  even  Byron  wasn't 
ashamed  of  being  a  lord." 

"  If  he  had  been,  he  would  have  been  a  greater  poet." 

The  young  man  made  a  petulant  movement.  "  It  was 
lost  time  sending  me  to  'Varsity :  you  see  what  a  mess  I've 
made  of  it.  I  haven't  got  your  head  for  books  or  figures. 
I  ought  to  have  gone  straight  from  school  into  the  service 
like  so  many  chaps,  like  your  own  grandfather." 

"  Our  grandfathers  cannot  rule  us  from  their  urns. 
Each  generation  must  face  life  for  itself — none  must  bind 
the  others." 

"  And  yet  you  would  bind  me !" 

It  was  an  unexpected  blow — straight  between  the  eyes — 
and  the  older  man  physically  staggered  back  before  it. 
There  was  another  moment  of  silence.  The  bullfinch, 
thinking  the  tiresome  conversation  at  an  end,  flew  over  and 
perched  on  his  hand,  but  he  tossed  the  creature  impatiently 
into  the  air.  As  this  was,  however,  his  usual  playful  cus- 
tom, the  deluded  bird  returned  to  his  hand,  and  as  he  had 
not  the  courage  to  undeceive  it,  it  remained  on  its  perch, 

43 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

fluffing  all  its  feathers  with  joy,  and  putting  its  tail  from 
side  to  side.  The  heart  behind  its  little  red  breast  was  the 
only  happy  heart  in  the  room. 

When  the  father  spoke  again,  his  voice  was  husky  but 
firm.  "  I  have  not  the  right  to  bind  you." 

"  But  will  you  help  me  ?     I  am  dependent  on  you." 

"  To  curtail  your  independence  would  be  to  bind  you." 

"  Thank  you,  father.  I  appreciate  your  attitude.  Of 
course  my  ordinary  allowance  will  not  provide  for  a  com- 
mission." 

"  You  wish  to  purchase  a  commission !" 

"How  else?" 

"  There  are  a  few  regiments  here  and  abroad — oh,  I 
didn't  suppose  those  appealed  to  you.  But  you  know  how 
I  have  voted  year  after  year  against  this  corrupt  system." 

"  Oh,  who  pays  attention  to  that  annual  motion !  It's 
a  standing  joke.  We  have  the  best  army  in  the  world — 
why  not  let  well  alone?  Come,  father,"  and  he  smiled, 
"  surely  you  wouldn't  ask  me  to  wait  till  the  purchase 
system  is  abolished — till  I  am  old  and  gray  ?" 

"  It  will  be  abolished  sooner  than  you  think." 

"  Then  I  shouldn't  want  to  join.  Fancy  messing  with 
a  lot  of  cads !" 

"  Cads !  When  they  would  have  worked  their  way  up 
by  merit." 

"  Merit  or  not,  they'd  have  dirty  finger-nails." 

"  For  dirty  work  you  don't  want  clean  hands." 

The  young  man  laughed.  "  Wait  till  Louis  Napoleon 
invades  England,  father — you'll  change  your  tune." 

"  The  first  Napoleon  didn't  purchase  even  his  rank  as 
lieutenant.  No,  no,  Tom;  if  there  must  be  war,  the 
French  system's  the  finer.  Every  corporal  carries  a  mar- 
shal's baton  in  his  knapsack." 

"  England  isn't  France,  no,  nor  America  either.  Our 
men  require  to  be  led  by  gentlemen.  And  are  you  going  to 
examine  a  gentleman  in  Greek  to  see  if  he's  likely  to  lead  a 
forlorn  hope?  Can  a  man  ride  a  horse?  That's  the 

44 


TOM 

question.  Not  Euclid's  riders."  And  he  laughed  sun- 
nily. "  I'm  afraid  if  they  started  examining  for  the 
Army  as  they've  begun  to  do  for  the  Civil-Service,  I  should 
be  nowhere  beside  a  half-starved  sizar  who's  never  been 
across  an  animal  in  his  life." 

The  pain  on  the  father's  brow  deepened,  but  he  only 
said,  "  Well,  let  me  know  what  regiment  you  wish  to  join, 
and  the  price,  and  I'll  see  what  I  can  do." 

"  Thank  you,  sir.     I  shall  not  do  our  name  discredit." 

"  Of  that  I  am  convinced — as  the  world  understands 
credit.  And,  by-the-way,  let  me  know  at  the  same  time 
how  much  you  are  in  debt." 

Tom  smiled :  "  How  did  you  know  that,  sir  ?" 

The  father  let  his  stern  mouth  relax  a  little  in  return. 
"  You  forget  I  am  a  professional  student  of  finance.  I 
can  see  by  your  face  you  are  not  up  to  your  neck." 

"  No,  sir.  But  I  rode  a  steeple-chase  and  backed  my 
own  mount,  and  I  did  get  up  to  my  neck — in  mud — ha! 
ha !  but  not  so  deep  in  debt." 

"  Ah,  and  you  paid  that — but  not  your  tailor !" 

The  young  man  smiled  again,  but  his  father  frowned. 

"  And  so  you  consider  the  gambling  debt  is  the  debt  of 
honor,  not  the  bill  you  owe  your  tailor."  Tom  looked 
gloomy,  but  his  face  grew  cheerful  again  as  his  father  con- 
tinued :  "  Had  you  owed  the  gambling  debt,  I  should  not 
have  helped  you.  The  tailor  must  be  paid  instantly." 

The  bullfinch  struck  up  a  joyous  whistle,  as  if  in  sym- 
pathy with  snips  and  morals. 

But  the  worst  of  Tom's  troubles  was  before  him.  He 
had  to  face  his  mother  and  Allegra.  To  the  former  he 
broke  the  news  that  night  in  the  drawing-room,  after  the 
girls  had  retired  to  bed. 

"  Go  soldiering !"  Mrs.  Marshmont  shrieked.  "  No, 
no;  I  won't  have  you  murdered." 

"  But,  mother,"  and  the  good-natured  giant  took  her  hot 
nervous  hands,  "  I  may  never  even  see  a  battle." 

"  Yes,  you  will.  You'll  be  sent  out  as  soon  as  your 

45 


uniform  comes  home,  and  you'll  be  killed  by  the  first 
shot." 

He  laughed.     "  You  are  indeed  a  Cassandra." 

"  Cassandra  or  Cleopatra,  I  tell  you  you  shall  stay  at 
home.  Let  go  my  hands !"  She  tore  them  from  his  good- 
humored  grasp  and  pushed  him  violently  backward  against 
the  mantel-piece.  To  her  he  was  still  the  small  boy  she 
had  slapped.  With  difficulty  he  saved  his  head  from  col- 
liding with  the  great  clock. 

"  You  see,"  he  said  humorously.  "  It's  just  as  danger- 
ous to  stay  at  home." 

"  Dangerous !"  He  had  roused  the  hysteric  note,  and 
her  hands  went  dramatically  heavenwards.  "  And  this  is 
what  I  get  for  waiting  on  him  hand  and  foot,  and  airing 
his  under-garments  myself,  and  lying  awake  sleepless 
till  I  hear  his  latch-key  in  the  door !  And  a  nice  father — 
to  arrange  all  this  behind  my  back !  I  thought  at  least  he 
had  hands  without  hair,  but  he's  an  Esau  of  Esaus.  What 
else  can  you  expect  of  a  hunter  of  God's  creatures  ?  And 
he  hunts  me — I  crouch  bleeding  in  the  thicket.  Because 
he  has  no  heart,  he  can't  understand  how  other  people's 
hearts  may  drip  blood.  But  I'll  go  to  him — he  sha'n't 
rob  me  of  my  first-born.  Out  of  my  way !"  she  screamed, 
as  her  first-born  half -seriously  barred  her  passage.  She 
took  him  f renziedly  by  the  shoulders  and  thrust  him  aside. 
Then  she  fell  to  wringing  her  hands  and  bemoaning  her- 
self in  Welsh. 

Allegra  ran  in,  with  flying  hair,  and  a  huddled-on  dress. 
She  had  urged  her  sisters  to  descend  with  her  to  the  scene 
of  war,  but  Joan's  mock  recitation  of  "  How  do  the  waters 
come  down  at  Lodore?"  had  turned  their  first  anxiety  to 
levity,  for  to  all  Allegra's  apprehensions,  Joan  had  retorted 
imperturbably  with  lines  like 

And  crashing,  and  lashing,  and  bashing,  and  gnashing; 

or, 

And  scowling,  and  growling,  and  howling,  and  yowling. 
46 


TOM 

Allegra  found  her  Viking  of  a  brother  leaning  limp  and 
helpless  against  the  mantel-piece.  In  her  new  sympathy 
with  men  she  understood  at  once  how  impotent  he  must 
feel  against  this  feminine  inconsequence :  understood,  too, 
how  much  more  disconcerting  and  terrifying  the  outburst 
must  be  to  him,  so  much  away  from  home,  than  to  the  rest 
of  the  habituated  household. 

She  sidled  up  to  him.  "  What's  the  matter,  Tom  ?"  she 
murmured  shyly. 

"  Your  father  and  brother  have  conspired  against  me," 
the  mother  screamed.  "  The  eagles'  young  shall  suck  up 
the  blood  of  my  first-born." 

Allegra's  eyes  grew  wide  with  terror.  Was  her  mother 
mad  ?  If  not,  what  wild  tragedy  was  afoot  ? 

Tom's  uneasy  laugh  made  her  easier.  "  It's  all  right, 
you  little  goose.  I  want  to  join  some  chums  in  the  Dra- 
goons, and  mother's  imagination  already  sees  me  dead  in- 
stead of  decorated." 

"  It  isn't  my  imagination,  it's  my  second  sight.  My 
mother  saw  my  father  shattered  at  the  foot  of  the  precipice 
before  we  knew  there  was  a  mist  on  the  mountain  paths. 
A  hundred  times  she  warned  him  of  the  Old  Woman  of  the 
Mountain."  She  brought  a  touch  of  weirdness  into  this 
atmosphere  of  artificial  furniture.  Allegra  shuddered. 

"  Well,  if  you  see  truly,  it's  got  to  come.  So  it  would 
be  silly  to  try  to  dodge  it,"  said  Tom,  with  British  phlegm. 

"  But  you  mustn't  go  to  war,  Tom,  indeed  you  mustn't," 
Allegra  cried. 

"  And  why  not,  pussy  ?     For  fear  I'd  be  killed  ?" 

"  No ;  for  fear  you'd  kill  others." 

"  And  why  shouldn't  he  kill  others  ?"  Mrs.  Marshmont 
interrupted  fiercely.  "  Shall  he  let  himself  be  hewn  in 
pieces  like  the  Amalekite  ?" 

"  War  is  wicked,"  Allegra  declared,  with  stern  white 
lips. 

Tom,  relieved  by  this  new  opposition,  burst  into  a  roar 
of  laughter. 

47 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Oho !  is  thee,  too,  a  Friend  ?" 

"  I'm  for  peace,  not  war.  If  we  must  fight,  let  us 
fight  with  the  forces  of  evil  around  us,  with  the  poverty 
and  the  pain.  Think  of  the  women  and  children  crawling 
like  beasts  in  the  coal-mines.  O  Tom,  let  us  make  Eng- 
land great,  not  big." 

Tom's  blue  eyes  danced  with  honest  merriment. 

"  Why,  mother,  the  child  has  been  studying  father's 
speeches." 

The  mother  flashed  angry  eyes  upon  her.  "  I  saw  them 
plotting  together." 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  study  father's  speeches  ?"  the  girl 
asked  hotly.  "  It  would  be  better  for  you  both  if  you  had 
more  respect  for  him.  For  he  is  in  the  right, — father  is 
in  the  right.  I  have  proved  it,  not  from  his  speeches  only. 
All  the  books  say  the  same  thing.  Do  you  know  how  many 
people  in  England  have  no  crust  for  their  stomach,  no  bed 
for  their  back?  Four  millions.  Four  millions,  while 
we  eat  four  meals  a  day." 

"  And  don't  you  do  your  share  ?"  asked  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont  shrilly. 

"  I  do,  and  I'm  ashamed  of  it." 

"  The  remedy  is  simple,"  Tom  laughed. 

"  Not  so  simple  as  your  ideas  of  political  economy." 

"  Don't  talk  to  your  elder  brother  like  that,  miss,"  her 
mother  snapped. 

"  If  my  starving  could  do  any  good,  God  knows  I  would 
starve.  But  the  only  way  is  to  improve  the  general  condi- 
tions. We  must  assure  every  man  the  fruits  of  his  own 
industry.  Is  nine  shillings  a  week  the  fair  reward  of  the 
agricultural  laborer  ?  How  can  he  bring  up  a  family  on 
nine  shillings  ?"  Her  pretty  eyes  flashed  with  anger  and 
tears. 

"  Hush,  Allegra,"  said  Mrs.  Marshmont,  reddening. 
"  What  do  you  know  of  bringing  up  families  ?" 

"  I've  seen  you  bring  up  yours.  I  know  what  it 
costs." 

48 


TOM 

"  Do  you  indeed  ?  If  you  did — if  you  understood  the 
agonies  and  the  anxieties  I've  been  through  for  all  of  you 
— you  would  not  treat  me  like  this."  And  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont  anticipated  Allegra  by  bursting  into  tears. 

Big-hearted  Tom,  startled,  went  over  to  her  and  put 
his  arm  around  her.  "  Who  is  hurting  little  mother  ?" 

Mrs.  Marshmont  let  her  wet  face  fall  on  his  manly  shoul- 
der :  "  My  Tom,  my  own  boy,  the  only  person  in  the  house 
who  has  a  kind  word  for  me." 

Allegra's  overwelling  tears  froze  on  her  eyelids.  Her 
heart  stiffened  itself  against  this  illogical  parent.  What 
kindness  did  she  deserve,  this  woman  who  darkened  her 
husband's  unselfish  life!  No  helpmate  she,  mar-mate 
rather. 

Happy  in  the  sudden  lull,  Tom  purred  over  his  mother, 
who  cooed  back.  Allegra  stood  by  stonily,  watching  with 
contempt  her  mother's  gradual  oblivion  of  the  point  at 


issue. 
a 


Wait  till  you  see  me  in  my  regimentals,  mother,"  Tom 
ventured  at  last. 

"  My  own  handsome  boy !  But  promise  me  my  baby 
sha'n't  get  killed." 

"  Me  killed !  No,  no,  pet,  of  course  not.  General 
Marshmont,  eh  ?  How  do  you  like  that  ?" 

"  I  sha'n't  live  to  see  it,  cariad  anwyl  "  [dear  love]. 

"  What !  a  slip  of  a  girl  like  you !" 

They  kissed  each  other.  Allegra  turned  on  her  slip- 
pered heel  and  went  back  to  bed,  disgusted. 


CHAPTER   VI 
LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

IT  was  in  a  dream  of  this  night  that  the  germ  of  Allegra's 
new  poem  came  to  her.  Probably  it  all  grew  out  of  the 
nightmare  that  haunted  her  even  by  day,  since  she  had 
begun  to  follow  her  father's  footsteps  through  the  maze 
of  human  misery.  Political  economy  radiated  back 
the  glow  of  her  young  soul  and  became  passionate  and 
palpitating.  Even  statistics  took  on  flesh  and  blood  to 
her  phantasy — very  appalling  flesh  and  blood  sometimes. 
The  four  million  paupers  stood  in  a  solid  phalanx, 
ragged,  hungry,  dishevelled,  and  raucous,  a  Dantesque 
horror. 

Perhaps,  too,  the  poems  of  Deldon — which,  despite  their 
vast  popularity,  she  had  not  known  till  she  chanced  on 
them  among  her  father's  pamphlets — contributed  to  her 
latest  manner:  Deldon  with  his  strange  blend  of  revo- 
lutionary Radicalism  and  celestial  allegory,  "  the  angel 
Israfel  banging  a  drum,"  as  the  Edinburgh  Review 
christened  him.  Anyhow,  Allegra's  new  poem  was 
so  beautifully  vague,  so  vaguely  beautiful,  that  she 
could  not  have  explained  what  it  meant,  even  to  herself. 
The  theme  that  gleamed  so  magically  golden  in  her  dream 
faded  to  drab  in  the  cold  dry  light  of  day,  yet  a  sort  of 
elusive  splendor  still  seemed  to  hover  about  it,  and  Al- 
legra  worked  at  it  in  shamefaced  secrecy.  It  concerned 
a  beautiful  stone  statue  that  stood  solitary  in  a  great 
deserted  hall,  amid  the  crumbled  pillars  of  a  ruined  an- 
cient palace,  and  all  around  it  stretched  a  vast  desert  of 
sand.  And  through  the  hall  blew  the  four  winds,  bearing 

50 


LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

"  the  music  of  humanity."  From  every  part  of  the  earth 
and  from  times  long  past  came  the  passionate, pitiful  wail, 
long-sounding  'cello  and  violin  notes,  and  a  faint  trem- 
ulous fluting  of  far-away  miseries.  And  gradually, 
through  sterns  measureless,  the  statue  began  to  change : 
a  heart  of  flesh  developed  under  the  stone,  and  the  music 
broke  upon  the  heart,  and  the  heart  throbbed  and  thrilled 
in  pity.  But  alas!  it  could  do  nothing.  It  was  only  a 
living  heart  in  a  lifeless  statue.  And  so  now  there  was  a 
new  pain  added  to  the  world's  pain :  the  pain  of  the  heart 
that  felt  it  all,  and  beat  out  its  daily  endless  life,  unseen, 
unheard,  under  the  enduring  marble  peace  of  the  beauti- 
ful stone  figure,  in  the  forlorn  hall  of  crumbled  pillars, 
in  the  ruined  ancient  palace,  amid  the  vast  stretches  of 
sand. 

The  new  poem  was  written  in  Spenserian  stanzas,  and 
served  as  a  vent  for  all  the  novel  forces  seething  in  the 
girl's  soul.  But  for  this  outlet  she  might  have  done  some- 
thing desperate.  Indeed,  she  did  once  think  of  polishing 
her  own  shoes. 

'*  Joan !"  she  said  one  night,  as  the  two  sisters  coincided 
in  thumping  down  their  shoes  outside  their  adjoining  bed- 
rooms, "  don't  you  think  it's  a  shame  that  Saunders  should 
clean  our  shoes  ?" 

"  I  do  indeed,"  said  Joan.  "  Gwenny  used  to  do  them 
much  better." 

"  I  don't  mean  that.  I  think  we  ought  to  do  them  our- 
selves." 

"  You  can.     I've  got  better  things  to  do  with  my  time." 

"  What  better  things  3" 

"  You  know  as  well  as  I  do." 

Joan  was  not  unlike  Allegra,  but  she  was  shorter  and 
plumper,  and  her  chin  was  squarer.  She  was  never  in  two 
minds  about  anything. 

"  You  mean  flannel  waistcoats  for  the  poor,"  said  Al- 
legra contemptuously. 

"  And  woollen  socks,"  added  Joan  imperturbably. 

51 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  You  only  pauperize  them.  You  don't  touch  the  real 
problem.  How  dare  we  give  the  poor  presents  ?  Our 
hands  are  not  clean." 

"  And  so  you  would  clean  them  by  blacking  shoes  ?" 

"  Physical  dirt  might  be  moral  cleanliness." 

"  Good  heavens,  Allegra,  if  only  old  Mrs.  Rhys  heard 
you !  After  mother  and  I  have  lectured  her  by  the  hour 
to  scrub  her  floors  and  her  children  !" 

"  Give  her  more  air  and  light — cleanliness  will  come  of 
itself.  If  you  squeeze  her  into  a  dog-kennel — " 

"  Why,  when  have  you  been  to  Mrs.  Rhys's  ?" 

"  I've  never  been.     I  know  on  general  principles." 

"  General  principles !  You'd  know  better  if  you  went 
visiting  with  mother  and  me.  That  reminds  me,  where's 
that  half-a-crown  ?" 

"  What  half-a-crown  ?" 

"  The  one  you  promised  me  in  aid  of  the  cotton-spinrier 
who  was  caught  in  the  machinery." 

Allegra  blushed.  "  Oh,  I  am  so  sorry,  Joan.  I  forgot. 
I  bought  a  book  with  it." 

"  And  didn't  even  lend  me  the  book  ?" 

"  It  wouldn't  have  interested  you.  It  was  about  the 
Factory  Act." 

"  Oh,  a  present  for  father !  You  might  have  given  him 
something  nicer." 

"  Stop  squabbling,  you  pair  of  nincompoops !"  Dulsie's 
voice  rang  out.  "  I  can't  go  to  sleep." 

While  the  great  Spenserian,  mystical,  allegorical  poem 
was  on  the  stocks,  the  result  of  the  Cornucopian  competi- 
tion was  published  in  large  capitals.  With  what  a  thrill 
Allegra  read  the  name  of  the  first  prize-winner — Raphael 
Dominick — a  name  henceforward  to  be  inscribed  on  "  the 
Scroll."  All  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  England 
people  must  be  speaking  of  him,  waiting  as  anxiously  as 
herself  for  the  next  number  to  read  the  epoch-making 
heroic  couplets  on  "  Fame."  The  second  and  third  win- 
ners interested  her  scarcely  at  all — she  noted  with  a  touch 

52 


LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

of  sadness  that  neither  was  feminine.  Ah!  women,  they 
could  not  reach  the  heights:  Pegasus  was  not  to  be  ridden 
with  a  side-saddle.  When  the  great  poem  appeared,  Al- 
legra  and  her  sex  shrank  even  more  in  her  estimation. 
What  majesty  of  diction!  what  clang  of  brazen  rhyme! 
!N"o  victim,  this  great  soul,  of  the  false  martial  concept. 
Deeds  of  derring  -  do  had  their  place,  but  sternly 
subordinated  to  moral  heroism  and  lofty  national  purposes. 
It  was  a  high  paean  of  spiritual  beauty,  of  the  faith  that 
achieves,  of  the  name  that  rises  slowly  to  a  star.  Allegra 
read  it  with  tears  and  flames.  She  re-read  it  under  the 
elm-tree  in  the  back  garden;  recited  it  to  the  heavens  as 
she  dashed  through  the  Park  on  the  mild  steed  which  she 
shared  with  her  sisters:  she  added  its  most  inspiring 
couplet  to  her  bedroom  texts.  She  wondered  over  the 
poet.  What  was  his  history  ?  How  did  he  bear  this  daz- 
zling glory  ?  Famous  at  a  bound,  he  would  go  from  splen- 
dor to  splendor.  Young,  of  course,  he  was.  And  married  ? 
Oh,  Heaven  forfend !  Perhaps  a  nagging  wife !  Ah, 
women  were  poor  creatures,  with  their  whims  and  whams, 
their  furbelows  and  flirtations  and  hysterics.  They  had 
no  sense  of  national  polity;  still  less  could  they  make 
poems !  She  must  burn  her  silly  allegorical  stanzas — 
flabby  and  meaningless  beside  this  virile  resonance.  Oh, 
to  smooth  the  path  of  such  a  man!  She  found  herself 
mentally  mothering  him,  shepherding  his  little  ones.  She 
looked  up  his  address,  given  in  last  week's  number  as  a 
guarantee  of  good  faith.  Mile  End  Road!  It  sounded 
like  the  places  to  which  Joan  and  her  mother  took  jellies. 
He  was  poor,  then,  this  God-gifted  genius.  At  this  very 
moment  he  might  be  hungering  for  bread,  like  Chatterton. 
Great  Heavens,  he  might  be  imbibing  the  fatal  draught! 
Stop !  Stay  thy  hand  a  moment,  divine  boy !  Dost  thou 
not  hear  Allegra  dashing  up  the  stairs  to  thy  attic !  She 
breaks  through  the  door,  she —  But  no!  of  course: how 
foolish !  there  were  the  five  pounds  he  had  won. 

Allegra  came  to  herself  with  a  little  laugh,  both  of  relief 

53 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

and  self -mockery,  and  the  blood  returned  to  her  whitened 
cheeks. 

But  she  burnt  the  Spenserian  stanzas — very  dramati- 
cally— as  one  offering  a  burnt-offering  for  past  vanities — 
and  with  a  vow  of  self-consecration  to  the  service  of  hu- 
manity. Fame  was  for  the  great:  enough  if  she  could 
find  a  humble  channel  of  "  work  for  the  world."  Perhaps 
her  father  would  let  her  help  him.  Surely  she  could  do 
something  for  him,  copy  something,  look  up  something, 
especially  with  all  her  new  wealth  of  knowledge  anent 
Factory  Acts  and  pauper  statistics,  her  daily  study  of  the 
newspapers,  and  "  contemporary  history."  Yes,  Provi- 
dence had  marked  out  her  path.  She  would  do  for  the 
statesman  what  his  wife  should  have  done  for  him;  she 
would  be  at  his  beck ;  she  would  anticipate  his  call. 

And  in  this  religious  uprising,  this  sense  of  the  world 
as  a  selfish  place  of  eating  and  drinking,  she  grew  alien 
from  Dulsie  and  Mabel,  as  mere  exemplars  of  flippant 
womanhood,  whose  very  church-going  held  no  more  spiritu- 
ality than  their  croquet-matches.  How  could  they  enjoy, 
as  they  did,  this  empty  egotistic  round  ?  An  obscure  poet, 
one  Browning  (of  whose  verses  she  had  picked  up  a  re- 
viewer's copy,  uncut,  in  the  fourpenny  box),  seemed  to 
supply  the  answer : 

"Finished  and  finite  clods,  untroubled  by  a  spark." 

The  line  recurred  to  her  again  and  again,  always  in  the 
presence  of  women,  especially  women  with  smug  jewelry. 
Their  radiating  acquiescence  in  the  injustice  of  things 
stung  her  to  comprehensive  disdain.  Would  she  ever  sink 
to  that — turn  vegetable?  No,  never;  she  swore  it.  Yet 
disquieting  suspicions  floated  to  her  from  her  motley  read- 
ing; in  this  very  Browning,  as  in  so  many  of  the  poets, 
there  were  lines  suggesting  that  the  passage  of  the  years 
brought  despair  and  cynicism.  It  was  a  pet  theme,  in- 
deed, with  the  young  Cornucopians,  this  desiccation  of 
their  emotions,  the  waning  of  the  visions  of  childhood. 

54 


LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

Nay,  Allegra  herself  had  played  with  the  idea  as  a  literary 
exercise,  sometimes  even  taking  herself  in,  particularly 
when  the  glow  of  a  red  fire  in  the  shadowy  drawing-room 
at  twilight  added  zest  to  her  delicious  misery.  She  had 
devoted  a  double  acrostic  to  yearnings  for  her  lost  illu- 
sions, and  coquetted  with  melancholia  in  a  conundrum. 
But  in  her  unliterary  hours  she  knew  that  her  heart  of 
hearts  was  pulsing  with  love,  and  with  faith  in  God,  and 
Man,  and  Nature. 

Allegra's  seat  at  table  faced  the  sideboard,  and  this  side- 
board very  often  drew  her  eyes  between  the  courses,  not 
because  of  the  dishes  on  its  marble  top,  but  by  virtue  of  its 
own  eccentricities.  Conventional  enough  in  its  great  mir- 
ror, crowned  by  the  gigantic  gilt  pineapple,  it  was  sup- 
ported on  the  wings  and  heads  of  eagles,  themselves  stand- 
ing irrelevantly  on  carven  books.  The  artist  had  got  a 
sense  of  strain  into  the  eagles'  talons,  but  Allegra  often 
wondered  how  the  wings  and  heads  could  transmit  this 
strain,  yet  themselves  remain  so  buoyant  and  uncrushed. 

Now  she  suddenly  read  a  high  allegory  into  the  false 
design.  Even  thus  would  she — Allegra — bear  the  strain 
of  the  years  with  their  prosaic  burdens:  joyous,  unyield- 
ing, supporting  herself  firmly  on  great  literature,  spread- 
ing wings  heavenward.  A  verse  of  the  Psalms,  often  in 
Gwenny's  mouth  — "  Thy  youth  is  renewed  like  the 
eagle's  " — mixed  itself  mystically  with  this  imagery.  Yes, 
age  should  not  ossify  her:  she  would  remain  always 
young,  ardent,  altruistic.  And  so,  whenever  the  conversa- 
tion at  table  hinged  on  levity  and  worldliness  and  young 
men,  whenever  a  chance  phrase  illumined  as  with  lightning 
the  sordidness  and  vanity  of  this  valley  of  tears  and  giggles, 
Allegra  turned  her  eyes  for  comfort  to  the  sideboard. 

But  sometimes  even  the  eagle  could  not  sustain  her. 
She  had  perturbing  visions  of  herself  as  old  and  tired,  and 
zoological  doubts  about  the  eagle  itself.  In  the  flame  of 
sixteen,  one  might  glow  and  burn,  but  how  would  it  be 
amid  the  ashes  of  forty  ? 

55 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH' 

In  such  a  mood  of  apprehension  Allegra  wrote  herself 
a  letter.  She  addressed  the  envelope,  "  To  Allegra  at 
Forty." 

"Mr  DEAR  ALLEGBA, — Although  we  have  not  met  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  you  still  by  your  Christian 
name.  It  is  possible  you  may  not  remember  me,  and,  for  my  part, 
I  do  not  know  whether  you  are  married  and  have  lots  of  children 
(but  I  hope  not,  for  how  can  we  work  for  humanity  if  we  have  to 
be  worried  with  nursery  cares?),  or  whether  your  name  is  still  Al- 
legra Marshmont.  I  only  know  that  you  are  very  old.  It  may  be, 
too,  that  you  are  very  blasee,  that  you  say  all  is  vanity,  and  there 
is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  Please,  please,  don't  go  on  thinking 
that.  Remember  that  day  in  the  woods  of  Hazelhurst,  when  you 
walked  in  God's  Cathedral,  and  Milton's  organ  rolled  through  the 
leafy  aisles.  Now,  as  then,  you  are  '  in  your  great  Taskmaster's 
eye.'  I  can  well  imagine  that  during  this  vast  stretch  of  time  you 
have  met  with  sad  things  and  disappointments  and  disillusions,  but 
yet  the  world  is  very  beautiful  and  very  wonderful,  and  there  is  so 
much  we  can  do  to  make  humanity  nobler  and  happier.  Ah,  don't 
despair,  Allegra  dear.  Think  of  the  scent  of  the  hawthorn,  and  the 
song  of  the  blackbird,  and  how  glorious  it  is  to  gallop  across  a  moor 
or  skate  across  a  pond.  I  am  just  out,  and  you  are  very,  very  old, 
but  I  know  that  the  sunlight  prevails,  and  not  darkness. 

'  So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 
A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us 
And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness.' 

"  You  may  sneer  at  the  poets,  but  Keats  is  right.  Yes,  Evil 
shall  never  triumph  over  Good.  Keats  did  not  despair,  though  he 
knew  he  must  die  of  consumption.  Ah,  if  you  should  happen  to 
have  married  a  man  like  Keats,  or  Raphael  Dominick — a  man  with 
the  eye  of  faith  and  the  lips  of  song — then  you  may  at  once  throw 
this  letter  into  the  W.P.B.  But  if  you  despair  of  your  own  happi- 
ness, remember,  dear,  there  is  always  the  life  of  service.  And,  per- 
haps, if  you  have  grown  sick  of  the  world,  it  is  not  the  world  but 
yourself  that  you  are  sick  of.  Perhaps  you  have  fallen  by  the  way 
— into  the  slough  of  selfishness.  Perhaps,  as  Gwenny  would  say, 
the  tares  have  choked  the  good  seed.  Perhaps  you  have  abandoned 
your  early  ideals  and  sought  for  mere  material  happiness.  No  won- 
der, then,  you  have  despaired  of  goodness  and  nobleness.  Not  be- 
lieving in  light,  you  have  ceased  to  be  a  child  of  light.  (See  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  St,  John.)  If  this  be  so,  then  I  pray  you  remem- 
ber me,  and  repent  for  my  sake.  Be  brave,  strong,  and  if  I  may 
misquote  Shakspere, 

'  To  thy  young  self  be  true.' 
56 


LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

"  Please  take  this  as  a  letter  from  a  dead  person,  and  be  solemnly 
impressed.  For  you  know  you  will  never  see  me  or  speak  to  me 
again,  and  this  is  the  voice  of  a  ghost;  a  ghost  that  shakes  its  long 
white  finger  at  you,  and  reminds  you  that  you,  too,  will  be  a  ghost 
some  day.  Oh,  but  I  didn't  mean  to  frighten  you.  1  dare  say  you 
will  live  many  years  more — unless  you  are  dead  already.  Perhaps, 
like  the  poor  mortals  in  '  The  Vision  of  Mirza,'  you  have  tumbled 
through  one  of  the  early  trap-doors  in  the  Bridge  of  Human  Life.  Oh 
dear,  and  then  this  letter  will  be  wasted,  so  I  had  better  not  make  it 
any  longer,  but  remain,  your  old  friend, 

ALLEGUA  MARSIIMONT." 

She  sealed  the  letter  with  black  wax,  and  hid  it  among 
her  unburnt  poems. 


CHAPTER  VII 
"FIZZY,    M.P." 

A  BOUT  half -past  four  of  a  Saturday  afternoon,  late  in 
-£^-  the  London  season,  the  Right  Honorable  Thomas 
Marshmont  arrived  home,  arm  in  arm  with  his  dapper 
and  brilliant  henchman,  William  Fitzwinter,  M.P.,  other- 
wise Fizzy.  The  diminutive  expressed  felicitously  the 
sparkle  of  the  man  and  the  contempt  or  affection  of  his 
contemporaries.  He  was  in  some  sort  the  complement  of 
Marshmont.  As  the  latter  had  shown  that  noble  birth 
was  no  bar  to  democratic  principles,  so  did  Fizzy,  son  and 
heir  of  a  middle-class  manufacturer,  testify  to  their  com- 
patibility with  enormous  wealth.  In  appearance  the  pair 
made  a  notable  contrast,  the  burly  carelessly  dressed  Minis- 
ter with  his  Jovian  forehead  and  stately  port,  leaning 
heavily  on  his  gnarled  stick,  and  the  dandified  little  manu- 
facturer with  his  air  of  fashion  contradicted  only  by  his 
cigar.  A  man  of  enormous  courage,  Fizzy  was  one  of  the 
first  of  his  generation  to  smoke  in  the  streets,  and  as  he 
now  walked  in  friendship's  hook  with  the  Minister,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  becloud  even  his  companion's  reputa- 
tion. 

Fizzy  ran  the  organ  of  the  newest  of  English  parties — 
the  Morning  Mirror — and  although  he  was  too  much  a 
man  of  pleasure  to  edit  it  systematically,  he  was  under- 
stood to  be  generally  responsible  for  its  libels.  At  any  rate 
it  was  only  its  policy  that  he  ever  disclaimed  in  private. 
He  was  the  one  Radical  of  importance  not  in  favor  of 
Marshmont's  acceptance  of  office,  but  the  Morning  Mirror 
had  thundered  huzzahs,  and  to  Marshmont's  simple-minded 

58 


"FIZZY,    M.P." 

expression  of  surprise  Fizzy  had  replied  with  a  wink, 
"  The  People's  Tribune  can  do  no  wrong." 

"  But  you  thought  T  did  do  wrong !" 

"  Our  party  isn't  big  enough  yet  for  a  split.  A  man  with 
only  one  hair  can't  afford  to  part  it  in  the  middle." 

The  Mirror  continued  to  applaud  Marshmont's  every 
word  and  move,  till  the  Minister  grew  ashamed  to  look  af 
it.  Once  he  begged  Fizzy  to  blot  out  his  name  from  the 
leaders,  or  to  bespatter  it  with  a  little  blame.  But  Fizzy 
was  unrelenting. 

"  You  have  to  be  praised  for  the  good  of  the  party," 
he  said  sternly.  "  You  must  sacrifice  yourself." 

"  But  are  you  sure  it  is  for  the  good  of  the  party  ?  You 
remember  the  Greek  who  got  tired  of  hearing  Aristides 
called  the  Just  ?" 

"  In  those  days  there  was  no  opposition  paper.  If 
Athens  had  had  the  Chronos,,  the  man  could  have  found 
relief  by  reading  quite  other  epithets  for  Aristides,  that 
brass-mouthed  inciter  of  Demos  to  the  pillage  and  murder 
of  the  upper  classes." 

Marshmont  smiled  faintly.  "  But,"  he  urged,  "  because 
The  Times  goes  to  one  extreme,  there  is  no  need  for  the 
Mirror  to  go  to  the  other." 

"  On  the  contrary,  that  is  the  very  reason ;  else  the  aver- 
age will  be  struck  wrong.  If  we  put  in  a  truthful  esti- 
mate of  you — that  is  to  say,  my  private  estimate  of  you — 
the  world  would  say,  oh  if  that's  all  his  friends  can  say 
for  him,  his  enemies  can't  be  so  very  wrong  after  all." 

"  But  nobody  believes  what  a  friend  says." 

"  Yes,  they  do :  quite  as  much  as  what  an  enemy  says. 
Every  bold  statement  sticks.  Even  that  of  the  people 
who  advertise  that  their  cocoa  is  the  best.  Why,  the  pub- 
lic swallow  the  Mirror's  praises  of  William  Fitzwinter, 
M.  P.,  despite  that  so  many  of  them  know  I  am  myself  the 
fountain  of  honor.  No,  no,  my  good  friend,  your  very 
instinct  of  fairness  would  make  you  unfair.  The  world 
weighs  on  a  false  balance — to  be  just,  therefore,  one  must 

59 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

make  corrections  for  the  defects  of  the  machine.  Sup- 
pose one  of  my  bagmen  in  selling  that  product  on  whose 
profits  the  Mirror  is  established,  and  which  therefore  af- 
fords us  a  pertinent  illustration,  suppose  one  of  my  young 
men  should  declare  it  was  worth  twenty-seven  and  sixpence 
the  piece  instead  of  thirty  shillings  ?  What  would  be 
the  result?  A  decline  of  the  price  from  twenty-seven 
and  sixpence  to  twenty-five  shillings !  Bang  go  my  honest 
profits,  the  Mirror  smashes,  and  the  Feudal  System  is  in 
for  another  long  run.  Fatal  consequences  of  one  small 
truth  is  an  unprepared  world!  No!  Language  to  be 
used  truthfully  must  be  used  in  its  living  meaning,  not  in 
its  dead  dictionary  meaning ;  and  in  a  world  where  '  worth 
thirty  shillings  '  is  understood  to  mean  '  worth  twenty- 
seven  and  sixpence  '  the  man  who  tells  the  truth  is  a  liar." 

"  But  we  who  love  truth  must  try  to  get  words  back  to 
their  face- value." 

"  Impossible :  neither  praise  nor  blame  will  ever  be 
accepted  at  par." 

"  Not  so  long  as  we  acquiesce  in  depreciating  the  cur- 
rency. Better  hold  your  '  Mirror  '  up  to  Nature." 

Fizzy  laughed.  "  Till  people's  eyes  get  truer  lenses, 
the  true  '  Mirror  '  must  be  a  distorting  one." 

And  out  of  this  position  Marshmont  could  never  shake 
him,  and  so  was  doomed  to  wince  nearly  every  morning 
under  the  monstrous  eulogies  of  his  astute  partisan.  Yet 
he  knew  Fizzy's  value  to  the  common  cause.  Of  the  trio 
who  created  the  new  party,  a  memoir-writer  has  said  that 
Marshmont  tried  to  persuade,  Bryden  to  move,  and  Fitz- 
winter  to  provoke.  Reasoner,  orator,  sharpshooter,  they 
made  a  formidable  trio,  which  Death  alone  could  divide. 

Fizzy  had  waylaid  the  Minister  in  Whitehall  after  the 
Cabinet  meeting  and  had  been  trying  to  pump  him  on 
what  had  taken  place  in  the  historic  pillared  room,  but 
Marshmont  carried  the  Privy  Councillor's  punctiliousness 
to  a  vice  and  was  morbidly  afraid  of  Fizzy's  journalistic 
instincts. 

60 


"FIZZY,    M.P." 

"  My  dear  chap,"  Fizzy  remonstrated,  "  all  the  world 
knows  that  there's  trouble  in  Novabarba,  and  that  there's 
trouble  in  the  Cabinet  is  shown  by  your  being  an  hour  and 
a  half  beyond  your  average.  Your  time  performances  are 
watched  like  the  foals  at  Newmarket." 

"  And  how  goes  the  betting  ?"  asked  Marshmont, 
amused. 

"  Well,  some  say  you  are  riding  for  a  fall." 

Marshmont  looked  startled.     "  The  Cabinet  or  I  ?" 

"  You  of  course.  You  begin  to  see  how  right  I  was — 
and  to  dislike  being  made  a  tool  to  keep  the  Prime  Minister 
in  power.  What  do  the  Whigs  care  about  Reform  ?  Xo 
more  than  the  Tories.  To  blazes  with  them  both.  We'll 
join  whichever  side  offers  most — sell  our  phalanx  to  the 
lowest  bidder — of  franchise!  I'll  bet  you  five  to  two, 
there's  a  more  democratic  suffrage  to  be  got  out  of  the 
Tories  than  out  of  the  Whigs." 

"  We  could  not  consistently  prop  up  the  old  aristocracy." 

"  Why  not  ?  As  a  sign  they're  coming  down — like  an 
old  house.  I  assure  you  they  hate  the  Whigs  worse  than 
they  hate  us  Radicals,  and  the  Whigs  hate  us  worse 
than  they  hate  the  Tories." 

"  Hate !  Hate !"  sighed  the  Minister.  "  Must  politics 
be  always  all  hate  ?" 

"  Of  course  not !  What  a  cynical  idea !  Both  parties 
love  power  more  than  they  hate  each  other." 

"  Yes,  I  fear  it  is  a  mere  chess-match.  If  only  the  honor 
and  happiness  of  England  were  not  the  pawns  in  the  game." 

"  If !  See  how  your  Cabinet  which  was  all  for  Re- 
trenchment and  Domestic  Reform  is  now  a-prancing  and 
a-pawing  like  that  misguided  war-horse  in  Job.  The 
Prime  Minister  edits  his  policy,  just  as  Delane  edits  The 
Times,  steering  by  John  Bull's  shifting  moods." 

"  Yes,  indeed."     The  Minister  sighed  more  deeply. 

"  And  these  crack  regiments  you  are  sending  to  Nova- 
barba — if  the  Continent  chooses  to  bristle  up,  who  knows 
but  we  may  find  ourselves  suddenly  in  a  European  war." 

61 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  That  is  what  I  told  them,  but —  "  began  the  Minister, 
and  stopped  short,  both  in  his  sentence  and  in  his  walk, 
while  Fizzy  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter. 

"  Don't  look  so  glum.  Every  journalist  in  London 
knows  you  are  sending  out  a  battalion — ' 

"  How  can  they  know,  when  we  only  just — " 

"  How  can  they  know  ?  Didn't  you  invite  General  Maxy 
to  your  pow-wow  ?  Didn't  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War 
come  up  from  Carlsbad,  didn't  the  Duke  of  Woodport  walk 
to  the  Treasury  in  grave  confab  with  the  First  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty,  didn't  the —  " 

"  Spare  me !"  interrupted  Marshmont,  smiling  despite 
himself.  "  You  are  like  the  Dervish  in  the  Oriental  story 
who  described  the  ass  he  hadn't  seen." 

"  Except  that  I  do  the  trick  in  the  plural.  But  here  is 
your  carriage  and  here  is  your  wife  getting  into  it  with 
all  the  grace  of  sixteen.  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont ?"  and  at  the  apparition  of  that  overwhelming  beauty 
in  the  swelling  skirts  of  the  period,  he  threw  away  his 
cigar,  and  raised  his  hat,  for  his  courage  was  only  equalled 
by  his  chivalry.  Mrs.  Marshmont  bowed  almost  imper- 
ceptibly, and  turning  angrily  to  her  husband,  she  cried: 
"  It's  too  bad  of  you,  Thomas.  I've  lost  an  hour  of 
this  glorious  sunshine  waiting  for  you  and  I  had  just 
made  up  my  mind  to  put  up  with  Allegra's  society. 
The  other  girls  are  so  busy  with  their  frocks  for  to- 
night." 

"  Ah,  how  do  you  do,  Miss  Allegra  ?"  interjected  Fizzy 
suavely,  perceiving  the  pretty  creature  blushing  desperate- 
ly under  her  veil.  Allegra  had  tried  hard  to  delegate  the 
honor  to  Joan,  but  that  sturdy  young  person  was  conscien- 
tiously engaged  in  fumigating  aphides  in  the  garden  and 
remorselessly  catching  rose  beetles. 

"  Are  the  girls  going  out  again  to-night  ?"  the  father 
asked  lamely. 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  you've  forgotten  Lady  Huston's 
last  evening." 

62 


"FIZZY,    M.P." 

"  Good  gracious,  is  that  to-night  ?  No,  no,  I  really  feel 
I  cannot  meet  Huston  again  to-day." 

"  You  see,  Mrs.  Marshmont,"  explained  Fizzy,  "  your 
husband  is  at  loggerheads  with  the  Foreign  Secretary  and 
there's  been  a  scrimmage  in  the  Cabinet." 

"  I  never  told  you  that,"  said  Marshmont  helplessly. 

Fizzy  laughed  again. 

Allegra  was  returning  in-doors,  but  her  father  made  her 
take  a  seat  in  the  carriage,  though  he  himself  was  thereby 
compelled  to  sit  queasily  with  his  back  to  the  horses.  Mr. 
Fitzwinter  was  likewise  invited  to  drive,  and  sat  content- 
edly with  his  face  to  the  ladies.  The  page-boy,  converted 
into  a  groom,  handed  Mrs.  Marshmont  her  rat  (which 
snuggled  in  her  lap  with  all  the  complacency  of  a  beribbon- 
ed  poodle),  and  the  barouche  bowled  along  the  drowsing 
Belgravian  streets  with  their  rich-massed  window-flowers 
and  gayly  striped  sun-blinds. 

As  they  approached  the  Park,  Fizzy  said,  "  Well, 
now,  Marshmont,  you  may  as  well  confess  about  the 
troops — " 

The  Minister  replied  resignedly :  "  So  much  all  the 
world  will  know  on  Monday.  I  am  afraid  my  wife  will  be 
a  little  upset." 

"  Tom  is  ordered  out  to  Novabarba !"  that  lady  scream- 
ed instantly. 

"  Yes — it's  rather  unfortunate  he  should  just  be  in  the 
very  Dragoon  Guards.  But  there's  nothing  to  worry  over. 
There  won't  be  any  fighting.  It's  only  a  parade  of  power 
— just  the  thing  to  stop  fighting." 

"  Ah,  that  was  Huston's  argument,  was  it  ?"  said  Fizzy 
with  a  twinkle. 

"  But  I  don't  want  to  lose  my  boy !"  Mrs.  Marshmont 
was  on  the  verge  of  a  break-down.  "  You  ought  to  have 
voted  against  it." 

"  I  did,  my  dear ;  I  was  very  strong,  and  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  the  Prime  Minister —  Again  he  jerked  him- 
self up  on  his  conversational  haunches. 

63 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Yes,  your  husband  convinced  half  the  Cabinet,  but  the 
Prime  Minister  gave  the  casting  vote." 

Marshmont   laughed   ruefully :    "  Well,   between   you 
and  my  wife — 

"  Tell  Wilson  to  drive  home,  Thomas.  There's  no  sun- 
shine for  me  any  more." 

"  Oh,  mother,"  said  Allegra  contemptuously.  "  If 
Tom's  a  soldier,  he  can't  be  tied  to  your  apron-strings." 

"  But  I  didn't  want  him  to  be  a  soldier !" 

Only  the  presence  of  the  stranger  prevented  her  from 
shrieking.  Father  and  daughter  knew  this  and  felt  glad 
he  was  with  them. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Marshmont,"  Fizzy  intervened  ur- 
banely, "  the  climate  of  Novabarba  is  excellent.  I  am 
thinking  of  wintering  there  myself." 

"  But  I  thought  it  was  all  swamps  and  malaria." 

"  What  an  idea !  Why,  young  Stacks  the  Governor,  who 
was  a  mere  skeleton  when  he  was  answering  the  Duke  of 
Woodport's  begging  letters,  is  now  making  his  subjects 
regret  he  abolished  cannibalism." 

Mrs.  Marshmont  neither  heeded  nor  grasped  the 
joke. 

"  But  Gwenny — I  mean  I  read  in  your  own  paper  yes- 
terday," she  persisted,  "  that  the  climate  of  Novabarba  is 
absolutely  fatal  to  whites." 

"  Ah,  that's  what  we  tell  the  Continent — keeps  'em  off." 
William  Fitzwinter,  M.P.,  was  never  at  a  loss  for  an  an- 
swer, not  being  limited  by  Truth.  He  proceeded  to  point 
out  how  much  better  it  would  be  for  Tom  to  travel  under 
new  skies  than  to  lounge  in  the  bow-window  of  the  Club 
amid  the  dandies.  The  arrival  at  the  Row  completed 
Mrs.  Marshmont's  pacification :  for  the  drive  now  became 
a  crawling  circuit  in  the  squirrel-cage  of  fashion,  with 
more  blocks  than  progressions,  amid  an  admiring  avenue 
of  nurse-maids  and  idle  citizens,  the  great  spaces  of  the 
Park  being  deserted.  There  was  an  unbaring  of  gentle- 
men's heads,  and  a  smileful  masking  of  ladies'  hearts,  an.d 

64 


"FIZZY,    M.P." 

these  social  amenities,  supplemented  by  the  ravishing  toi- 
lets and  equipages,  postponed  hysterics. 

The  scene — the  sun-dappled  sward,  the  flamboyant  rho- 
dodendrons, the  gay  bubble  of  life,  the  hanging-garden  of 
parasols,  the  chariots  with  armorial  panels  of  the  old 
dowagers — was  blotted  out  for  an  instant  by  Allegra's 
tears.  All  this  beauty  and  sparkle  seemed  ephemeral 
and  empty;  a  craving  after  pleasure  that  must  pass,  not 
after  the  righteousness  which  endures.  And  through  the 
heart  of  her  dream-statue  the  wail  of  humanity  was  pierc- 
ing poignantly.  And  in  workshop  and  mine  the  people 
sweltered,  delving  and  weaving  and  forging  that  these 
who  toiled  not  neither  spun  might  be  arrayed  in 
glory.  "  Ah,  I  love  the  Row,"  Mrs.  Marshmont  sighed 
voluptuously.  Allegra  repressed  a  sneer.  "  It's  the  only 
part  of  London,"  Mrs.  Marshmont  explained,  "  where  one 
may  be  sure  of  not  meeting  a  starved  or  ill-treated  horse." 

Allegra  repressed  an  apology,  and  her  reverie  hastened 
to  add  the  dumb  agony  of  animals  to  the  wail  of  humanity. 

But  the  conversation  of  William  Fitzwinter,  M.  P., 
drew  her  out  of  her  spiritual  trance — that  conversation 
which  held  in  thrall  the  House  of  Commons  smoking- 
room,  but  which  was  now  toned  down  for  Allegra's  ears. 
Fizzy  liad  a  genial  way  of  stripping  life  of  its  glamour  and 
death  of  its  dignity.  An  unequalled  experience  of  men 
and  cities  had  made  him  the  clironique  scandaleuse  of 
Europe.  Princes,  grand  chamberlains,  immortal  bards, 
Chancery  judges,  ballerinas — all  was  stinking  fish  that 
came  to  his  net.  The  human  interest  was  the  breath  of 
his  nostrils ;  to  romance  and  the  mellowed  historic  he  was 
color-blind.  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  suggested  to  him  only 
the  absurdities  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter,  and  Westminster 
Abbey  was  connected  mainly  with  the  washing  of  dirty 
surplices.  And  yet  he  did  not  give  the  effect  of  wilful 
cynicism.  His  was  the  unpretentious  attitude  of  the  man 
who  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  pomp  of  history  is  a  stage 
illusion  worked  by  the  dramatis  pcrsonae,  with  appropri- 

65 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

ately  purple  costume  and  elaborate  scenic  background,  for 
the  edification  of  the  pit  and  gallery  and  the  more  stupid 
of  the  stalls,  while  in  the  green-room  everybody  relaxes, 
throws  off  robes  and  wig,  and  drinks  beer  out  of  pewter 
pots.  And  so,  under  his  careless  talk,  Popes  became  asth- 
matic old  gentlemen,  Queens  unhappily  married,  middle- 
aged  ladies,  Ambassadors  elderly  practical  jokers.  He 
made  Allegra's  world  rock  like  a  ship  at  sea.  And  with 
it  all,  this  illogical  idealism  of  his  own,  these  preachments 
of  the  Morning  Mirror,  this  passion  for  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Pure  Reason.  His  monologue  this  afternoon 
— which  Marshmont  was  too  moody  to  interrupt  much — 
ranged  literally  from  China  to  Peru ;  from  the  metaphoric 
plucking  of  mandarins'  pigtails  by  our  cocksure  pleni- 
potentiary, to  the  spread  of  European  small-pox  and 
brandy  among  the  native  Indians.  The  passage  of  an 
elderly  diplomatist  in  a  landau  evoked  reminiscences  of 
incredible  pranks  on  the  roof  of  the  British  Embassy  in 
Constantinople.  Fizzy  skipped  easily  across  the  Darda- 
nelles into  Asia ;  and  the  disillusions  of  Damascus,  with  its 
boggy  camping-grounds,  paved  the  way  for  adventures 
in  one  of  the  Southern  States  of  America,  and  an  account 
of  the  futile  attempts  to  execute  the  Governor's  son-in-law 
for  murder.  Twice  he  had  been  found  guilty,  and  when 
Fizzy  left  for  New  York  the  third  trial  was  being  quashed 
by  the  rejection  of  all  the  jurors  on  the  ground  of  preju- 
dice. In  despite  of  which  to  Allegra's  astonishment  both 
men  proceeded  to  talk  wistfully  of  the  Great  Republic. 

Now  the  United  States  meant  to  her  the  Falls  of  Niag- 
ara, because  of  the  picture  in  her  Wonders  of  the  World., 
so  she  waited  impatiently  for  their  arrival,  and  at  last  in- 
terrupted almost  rudely. 

"  But  have  you  seen  the  Falls,  Mr.  Fitzwinter  ?" 
"  Seen  'em  ?     I've  stayed  with  them !" 
"  Oh,  do  please  tell  me  how  they  impressed  you." 
"  They  impressed  me  as  dangerous !"  said  Fizzy  calm- 
ly.    "  A  roaring  mass  of  water  like  that — seven  hundred 

66 


"FIZZY,    M.P." 

thousand  tons,  I  believe — it's  like  a  savage  beast,  of  no 
profit  to  the  human  race.  This  Park  is  vastly  finer — this 
well-rolled  turf,  these  spruce  symmetric  paths — 

"  But  surely,"  Allegra  cried,  "  that's  the  beauty  of 
Nature — the  wildness !" 

"  I  can't  agree,  my  dear  young  lady.  I  like  Nature 
brushed  and  combed  and  dressed  up  like  our  friend  on  the 
box,  and  taught  to  know  her  place.  Nature  is  Man's  enemy : 
she  must  be  tamed,  like  your  mother's  little  rat.  That's 
what  we  are  doing  in  Novabarba — cutting  away  the  forests 
and  laying  railway  lines." 

"  But  I  thought  you  and  father  were  against  our  doing 
that  in  Novabarba  ?" 

"  Not  at  all,  dear,"  Marshmont  broke  in.  "  We  are  only 
against  sending  out  the  nation's  troops  to  back  up  the  ex- 
actions of  private  speculators,  who  are  often  not  even 
Englishmen." 

"  What  then  ?"  Allegra  inquired. 

"  International  traitors,"  Fizzy  interjected. 

et  International  traitors  is  good,"  Marshmont  chuckled. 

"  It  shall  be  yours — in  Monday's  Mirror." 
. "  But,   Thomas,   Gwenny  told  me,"  Mrs.   Marshmont 
urged,  "  that  the  Novabarbese  were  in  revolt  against  us." 

"  Assuredly,"  said  her  husband. 

"  Then  we  must  put  them  down !  Why,  if  we  allowed 
them  to  revolt,  all  our  other  colonies  would  rise  up  against 
us." 

Fizzy's  small  thin  face  expanded  like  Father  Christ- 
mas's  with  joyous  good-will.  "  Delicious !  You  could 
not  have  said  anything  that  would  have  delighted  me  more 
keenly." 

Allegra  and  her  mother  were  equally  puzzled. 

"  You  typify  the  Briton,  my  dear  lady.  You  seriously 
are  under  the  impression  that  Novabarba  is  a  British 
Colony." 

"  Is  it  not  ?"  said  the  British  lady  with  nai've  astonish- 
ment. 

67 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Even  of  colonies,"  Fizzy  replied  in  slow  syllables,  with 
lingering  enjoyment,  "  there  are  three  kinds,  but  Nova- 
barba  is  not  even  a  third-class  colony ;  it  isn't  as  much  as  a 
Dependency.  No  part  of  Novabarba  belongs  to  Britain. 
Most  of  Novabarba  belongs  to  the  Novabarbese,  if  I  may 
use  one  epithet  for  a  hotchpotch  of  races,  colors  and  creeds 
united  only  by  their  distrust  of  the  European.  A  fraction 
of  the  Western  district  is  under  British  protection." 

"  Well,  then !"  said  Mrs.  Marshmont  triumphantly. 

"  True,  this  bit  is  twice  as  big  as  England,"  Fizzy  went 
on  unctuously,  "  just  as  Novabarba  itself  is  seventeen 
times  as  big  as  England,  but  your  average  Englishman  con- 
ceives it  as  the  size  of  an  English  county.  This  is  partly 
because  England  has  a  page  to  itself  in  every  schoolboy's 
atlas,  while  Novabarba  is  only  a  portion  of  a  page-map. 
That  the  maps  are  drawn  on  different  scales  is,  perhaps, 
not  unknown,  but  it  is  not  vividly  visible,  and,  as  I  was 
just  telling  Mr.  Marshmont  apropos  of  cocoa  and  repu- 
tations, it  is  the  vividly  visible  that  tells.  But  even  were 
Novabarba  as  small  as  it  appears  to  the  Briton,  it  would 
still  neither  be  British  nor  a  Colony." 

"  But  then  why  is  my  brother  going  out  there  ?"  asked 
Allegra. 

"Ah,  that  is  another  story.  It  is  not  British — but 
West  Novabarba  belongs  to  Britons.  At  least  it  did  at 
the  start.  Now  it's  mostly  in  the  hands  of  those  whom 
your  father  cleverly  christens  international  traitors." 
Ignoring  the  Minister's  grimace  of  deprecation  he  went  on : 
"  And  since  your  father  has  been  good  enough  to  tell  us 
that  your  brother  is  going  to  Novabarba,  I  don't  mind 
telling  you  the  history,  which  will  appear  in  Monday's 
Morning  Mirror.  Not  that  it  is  new :  but  to  a  journalist 
anything  is  new,  if  it  is  old  enough.  One  of  my  staff 
hunted  up  all  the  facts  in  the  Blue  Books,  assisted  by  a 
Foreign  Office  clerk  who  looked  through  the  old  corre- 
spondence for  a  consideration.  It  kept  the  young  gentle- 
man from  playing  fives.  Don't  look  so  serious,  Marsh- 

68 


"FIZZY,    M.P." 

mont,  I  was  in  the  civil  service  myself  in  the  good  old 
patronage  days." 

"Oh  of  course, you've  done  everything!"  the  Minister 
said  half  sarcastically. 

"  Except  pray,"  admitted  Fizzy.  "  Well,  it  seems  the 
whole  business  began  with  one  Linwood,  a  West  India 
planter  whose  sugar-canes  had  ceased  to  pay.  This  gen- 
tleman by  way  of  speculation  acquired  from  the  Sultan  of 
Xovabarba  a  province  just  as  it  stood:  lands,  rivers,  vil- 
lages, gum-trees,  natives,  gods — a  going  concern.  He  had 
power  of  life  and  death  over  his  motley  subjects  and, 
what  was  more  important,  the  right  of  taxation.  But 
when  he  tried  to  collect  the  taxes,  he  got  mainly  axes.  As 
this  sort  of  thing  didn't  pay,  he  naturally  thought  of  turn- 
ing it  into  a  Company,  and  this,  with  the  aid  of  Bagnell, 
a  prosperous  Scotch  promoter  in  Cornhill,  he  achieved, 
and  retiring  soon  after,  bought  a  baronetcy  with  the  pur- 
chase-money, married  so  as  not  to  waste  the  good-will  value 
of  his  title,  and  died  last  year,  leaving  a  baby  Baronet. 
The  more  astute  Scotchman  stuck  to  the  Company,  and 
pegged  away  at  getting  a  Royal  Charter,  much  to  the  an- 
noyance of  the  Foreign  Office,  which  became  involved  in 
a  vexatious  correspondence  with  several  Great  Powers 
having  spheres  of  influence  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
ambassadors  used  to  appear  once  a  month  with  ultimatums. 
But  Bagnell  held  on  like  a  bull-dog.  After  he  had  nearly 
converted  one  Foreign  Secretary,  there  was  a  change  of 
ministry,  and  Sisyphus  had  to  roll  his  stone  up  the  moun- 
tain all  over  again. 

"  In  the  new  Cabinet  Warbrooke  was  Colonial  Secre- 
tary. Now  a  briefless  and  brainless  barrister  named 
Stacks  had  been  prudent  enough  to  allow  Warbrooke's 
equally  penniless  sister  to  contract  an  imprudent  mar- 
riage with  him.  Warbrooke,  who  was  too  honest  to  risk 
charges  of  nepotism,  had  refused  to  appoint  him  to  any- 
thing, but  he  foisted  him  on  the  Duke  of  Woodport  as  one 
of  his  private  secretaries.  The  Duke,  discovering  his  use- 

49 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

lessness,  tried  hard  to  find  an  official  post  for  him,  but  could 
not  manage  it  decently.  Stacks  and  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren were  thrown  again  on  the  cold  world.  The  poor  man 
applied  for  the  post  of  secretary  to  a  new  company  Bag- 
nell  was  bringing  out,  and  gave  as  his  references  War- 
brooke  and  the  Duke.  He  received  no  reply,  but  Mrs. 
Bagnell,  a  charming  woman  desperately  anxious  to  become 
Lady  Bagnell,  got  herself  invited  to  the  Scotch  country- 
house  at  which  Warbrooke  was  staying  for  the  salmon- 
fishing,  and  managed  to  ask  him  if  there  was  any  nice 
young  clerk  at  the  Colonial  Office  who  could  be  recommend- 
ed to  rule  over  West  Novabarba,  as  she  understood  from 
her  husband  a  Governor  would  shortly  be  wanted.  So 
the  Company  got  the  Charter,  Bagnell  the  K.C.B.,  Stacks 
the  Governorship  and  the  shareholders  a  higher  quotation 
on  the  Stock  Exchange.  Ten  years  later  when  most  of 
the  shares  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  International 
Traitors — International  Traders  they  soften  it  to,  in  their 
own  parlance — they  worked  Great  Britain  into  establishing 
a  sort  of  Protectorate  over  the  Company's  possessions.  To- 
day Sir  Donald  Bagnell,  K.C.B.,  struts  about  with  his 
star,  Lady  Bagnell's  parties  are  chronicled  in  the  Morning 
Post,  Mr.  Stacks  poses  as  a  great  proconsul  and  plays  the 
Solon  to  a  savage  empire,  Sir  George  Linwood  howls  for 
his  feeding-bottle,  and  Britain  holds  her  own." 

"  Is  that  how  Britain  expands  ?"  asked  Allegra,  open- 
eyed. 

"  That's  how  the  mother-country  hatches  her  chicks. 
She  lays  an  egg  here  and  an  egg  there  in  silence,  never  a 
cackle;  with  equal  silence  they  are  hatched,  but  every 
year  you  discover  cocks  crowing  on  new  dunghills." 

"  Then  it's  all  for  private  gain !"  cried  Allegra,  disgust- 
ed. The  glory  of  the  Empire  seemed  evaporating  like  the 
glory  of  War. 

"  Did  you  imagine  we  acquire  semi-savage  territories 
in  order  to  provide  them  with  the  British  Constitution  and 
the  Bible?  The  British  Constitution  couldn't  possibly 

70 


"FIZZY,   M.P." 

be  run  at  a  profit  in  Novabarba  just  yet,  and  even  the 
Novabarbese  regime  only  pays  two  per  cent,  to  the  de- 
benture-holders, and  nothing  at  all  to  the  common  share- 
holder. As  for  the  Bible,  let  it  be  admitted  to  the  credit 
of  Britain  that  a  Novabarbese  version  does  circulate, 
even,"  he  added  slyly,  "  in  parts  that  are  still  indepen- 
dent." 

"  Then  after  all  England  is  a  civilizing  agency !"  cried 
Allegra. 

"  Certainly,  except  in  England.  And  yet  it  would 
really  be  more  economical  to  civilize  at  home,  because 
when  you  civilize  abroad  there  are  so  many  competitors 
in  the  business,  each  with  a  Constitution  and  a  Religion 
superior  to  all  the  others.  In  England  you  would  be  let 
alone  and  have  none  of  these  excursions  and  alarums." 

"  But  why  do  the  other  Powers  tamper  with  our  terri- 
tory ?"  inquired  Mrs.  Marshmont  patriotically. 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you  that  they  have  spheres  of  influence  ? 
They  are  afraid  West  Novabarba  will  expand  North,  and 
East,  and  South.  The  question  wasn't  so  acute  till  those 
blessed  mines  were  discovered.  The  embassies  had  only 
protested  on  general  principles.  But  now  they  are 
afraid  we  shall  get  mineral  concessions  outside  our  own 
sphere,  and  that  will  of  course  interfere  with  their  civil- 
izing. Indeed  it  is  quite  curious  to  find  how  even  small 
Powers,  like  Belgium  and  Portugal,  have  swooped  down 
on  Novabarba,  anxious  to  civilize  even  the  tiniest  corner. 
That  was  what  the  Convention  was  about  last  year." 

"  I  never  heard  of  Novabarba  till  last  year,"  admitted 
Mrs.  Marshmont. 

"  Who  did  ?  It  was  only  when  we  realized  that  there 
was  more  than  caoutchouc  in  the  country  that  we  became 
aware  that  foreigners  grew  there,  too.  For  the  next  ten 
years  Novabarba's  principal  export  will  be  gold,  and  her 
principal  import  adventurers.  All  this  has  turned  the 
Sultan's  head,  and  his  Vizier  has  lost  his  altogether  for 
having  advised  his  master  to  part  with  his  auriferous 

71 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

province  for  a  bagatelle.  Being  still  uncivilized,  the  Sul- 
tan itches  to  undo  the  bargain,  and  they  say  he  is  backed 
up  secretly  by  Continental  emissaries  and  egged  on  by  his 
youngest  wife,  a  masterful  minx  educated  above  her  sta- 
tion by  the  missionaries,  while  his  army  is  being  organ- 
ized and  trained  in  gunnery  by  a  German  expert,  the  mys- 
terious Paul  Haze.  Paul,  by-the-way,  is  doing  the  only 
real  civilizing  in  Novabarba — teaching  the  warriors  civil- 
ized methods  of  massacre !" 

"  Of  course  I  knew  the  story  generally,"  said  Marsh- 
mont,  whose  face  was  as  pained  as  Fizzy's  was  flippant. 
"  But  I  am  glad  to  have  my  memory  refreshed  with  the 
details.  All  you  say  strengthens  me  in  the  position  I 
am  taking  up." 

"  It's  Tom's  position  /  am  thinking  of,"  cried  Mrs. 
Marshmont  with  swift  reproach.  "  I  see  it  all  now — the 
Dragoons  will  be  fighting  the  Sultan." 

"  More  like  flirting  with  the  Sultanas,"  said  Fizzy, 
reassuringly. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE    DUCHESS 

IT  was  rather  unfortunate  that  Allegra's  first  important 
party  should  find  her  in  this  religious  revolt  against  the 
pride  of  the  eye  and  the  joy  of  the  world,  so  that  she 
should  walk  up  Lady  Huston's  celebrated  staircase  with  a 
conscientious  hostility  towards  what  really  interested  her 
exceedingly.  A  few  months  ago  she  had  been  grateful 
to  her  mother  for  rushing  her  "  out "  with  a  precipitation 
which  less  good-humored  spinsters  than  Dulsie  and  Mabel 
might  have  resented:  her  spirit  had  yearned  towards  the 
great  world  thronged  with  brilliant  men  and  wonderful 
women.  Even  now,  she  told  herself,  that  famous  salon 
must  hold,  amid  all  its  selfish  glitter,  abundance  of  men 
who  "  worked  for  the  world."  And  in  truth  it  was  full 
of  the  glory  of  life  and  power  and  adventure,  and  threads 
went  out  of  it  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.  Allegra's 
girlish  curiosity  prevailed  over  her  prejudice,  and  she  kept 
Mabel — who  would  have  preferred  to  note  the  dresses — 
busy  with  questions  as  to  who  was  who. 

Dulsie  had  been  early  detached  from  the  group  of  girls 
by  a  young  Spanish  diplomatist,  and  Allegra  only  caught 
occasional  glimpses  of  her,  sailing  under  the  flags  of  all 
nations,  as  was  her  cosmopolitan  custom  of  flirtation.  It 
was  her  method  of  expressing  her  father's  universalism. 
But  the  good-natured  Mabel's  knowledge  was  not  unequal 
to  Allegra's  curiosity,  for  political  society  was  small  and 
met  itself  everywhere,  and  Lady  Ruston  addressed  her 
cards  herself,  and  was  not  dependent  upon  the  self-consti- 
tuted masters  of  the  revels  who  supplied  so  many  hostess- 

73 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

es  with  "  lists."  At  this,  her  last  reception  for  the  sea- 
son, she  had  drawn  the  line  a  little  less  stringently,  not  only 
because  some  of  the  great  men,  especially  those  under  the 
milder  regime  of  the  Upper  Chamber,  sick  of  rout  and 
drum  and  the  Italian  opera,  had  unscrupulously  and  pre- 
maturely made  for  the  grouse-moors,  but  because  the  ob- 
scure members  of  the  Party  needed  occasionally  to  have 
their  celebrity  recognized,  and  their  convictions  heated 
in  an  atmosphere  of  old  tapestry,  ornate  ceilings,  and 
political  empery. 

Poor  Lord  Huston,  whose  memory  like  a  net  held  all 
the  big  fish  but  let  the  little  fish  escape,  had  a  bad  time  on 
these  occasions,  and  even  his  now  celebrated  question: 
"  Are  you  better  ?"  had  begun  to  leak  out.  And  yet  if  the 
science  of  phrenology,  which  was  then  in  its  glory,  had 
been  consulted,  many  of  these  minnows  would  have  been 
taken  for  tritons.  It  was  usually  the  political  pygmies 
who  had  the  frontal  developments,  and  the  big  bumps, 
and  the  grand  manner,  and  some  whom  Allegra  had 
imagined  Olympians  turned  out  what  Tom  used  to  call 
"  mere  pass-men." 

Allegra  was  not  aware  that  she  was  herself  the  cynosure 
of  many  lorgnettes,  especially  after  a  sudden  swirl  of  the 
currents,  produced  by  the  wind-like  passage  of  Royalty 
through  a  fluttered  and  curtsying  avenue,  had  separated 
her  from  Mabel.  She  stood  forlorn  at  a  doorway  between 
the  rooms,  catching  scraps  of  conversation  about  dissen- 
sions in  the  Cabinet,  and  philosophic  generalizations  on 
the  brittle  nature  of  Coalitions,  and  beneath  and  over  it 
all  the  pleading  music  of  some  hidden  orchestra ;  like  the 
still  small  voice,  Allegra  thought,  that  whispers  beauty 
through  all  the  vapid  buzz  of  life.  Her  conscience  re- 
membered, too,  how  she  had  neglected  her  piano  practice 
of  late,  in  the  study  of  political  economy,  and  she  remind- 
ed herself  that  the  Useful  need  not  exclude  the  Beautiful. 
Novabarba,  too,  often  flitted  through  the  air  in  sweet 
feminine  tones,  and  set  her  a-thinking  of  all  that  Mr.  Will- 

74 


THE    DUCHESS 

iam  Fitzwinter  had  said,  and  she  wondered  if  the  savages 
in  their  mud-swamps  would  ever  realize  how  they  were 
being  discussed  by  these  scented  lips. 

A  tap  on  the  shoulder  roused  her,  and  an  untuned  voice 
at  her  ear  said  with  girlish  eagerness,  "  Oh,  Minnie ! 
There's  Lord  Henrv,  do  shove  through  and  bring  him  to 
me." 

Allegra  turned  startled  eyes  on  a  stout  handsome  elder- 
ly matron,  upon  whose  head  sparkled  an  amazing  tiara  of 
diamonds. 

"  Oh,  aren't  you  Minnie  ?  I'm  so  sorry.  I  did  so  want 
to  talk  to  Lord  Henry  about  his  goings-on  at  Ascot.  But 
'pon  my  word,  you  are  very  like  my  Minnie.  Who  may 
you  be?" 

Allegra  flushed  with  her  wonted  readiness.  She  felt 
this  was  the  brusquest  person  she  had  ever  met,  but  her 
"  Nobody  in  particular,"  was  murmured  in  sheer  nervous- 
ness, not  meant  to  repay  rudeness  by  rudeness. 

"  You  needn't  be  angry,  my  dear,"  said  the  matron  in 
more  conciliatory  accents.  "  After  all  I'm  old  enough  to 
be  your  mother.  And  I  thought  I  was,  too."  She  laughed 
arid  her  laugh  was  more  likable  than  her  voice.  "  And  it's 
no  small  compliment  let  me  tell  you  to  be  mistaken  for  my 
Minnie.  She's  the  handsomest  gal  in  London,  and  would 
have  been  the  Queen  of  Beauty  at  the  Eglinton  Tourna- 
ment." 

Allegra  flushed  deeper  but  found  nothing  to  reply. 
The  lady  with  the  tiara  had,  however,  no  need  of  replies. 

"  Of  course  now  I  come  to  look  at  you,  it's  more  the 
white  frock  and  the  red  hair.  Your  chin  and  your  nose 
are  not  a  bit  like  Minnie's — but  then  of  course  Minnie's 
features  are  exceptionally  fine.  And  your  complexion — 
well,  if  I  were  really  your  mother,  I  wouldn't  let  you  go 
to  so  many  parties  in  the  small  hours.  When  I  was  your 
age,  I  wasn't  out  at  all — but  I  was  out  in  something  better 
than  society — the  fresh  air.  A  good  gallop,  that's  what  a 
girl  wants — not  a  gallop  in  a  ball-room  with  a  man's  arm 

_  75 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

squeezin'  her  stays  but  up  hill  and  down  dale.     You  don't 
mind  my  talkin'  candidly,  do  you,  my  dear  ?" 

"  No."  Allegra  had  recovered  her  tongue  and  deter- 
mined to  use  it  against  this  vulgar  person,  and  a  gleam 
of  humor  shot  from  her  eye.  "  But  this  happens  to  be  the 
first  grown-up  party  I've  been  to  at  night." 

"  Oh,  you  poor  thing !  No  wonder  you  look  so  out  in 
the  cold.  Of  course  my  Minnie  who  goes  everywhere 
knows  everybody,  and  she  gets  whirled  away  at  once.  I 
never  see  anything  of  her  till  she  wants  to  go  home.  But 
whatever  are  the  men  comin'  to  nowadays  ?  A  sweet 
child  like  you — why  when  I  made  my  debut  I  had  every 
man  in  London  at  my  feet !" 

"  How  do  you  do,  Duchess  ?"  and  a  tall  man,  glittering 
all  over  his  shirt  front  and  lapels  with  stars,  ribbons,  and 
medals,  accosted  Allegra's  interlocutor. 

"  How  de  do,  Sir  George.  I  don't  approve  of  your 
doin's  in  Novabarba.  You  ought  to  have  struck  while 
you  had  the  chance.  But  then  you  don't  care  what  7 
think.  Nobody  does  nowadays." 

"  Surely  people  care  as  much  as  ever,"  said  Sir  George, 
gliding  off. 

"  There !  did  you  hear  that  ?  What  a  charmin'  man !" 
And  the  Duchess  beamed.  Allegra's  confusion  had  re- 
turned. So  she  had  been  "  answering  "  a  duchess.  She 
had  never  talked  to  one  before,  and  all  the  romance  that 
had  gathered  round  duchesses  in  history  and  ballad 
surged  up  half  to  clothe  and  half  to  contradict  this  prosaic 
figure.  Mrs.  Browning's  rhymes  rang  in  her  ears : 


"  Then  from  out  her  bower  chamb£re  did  the  Duchess  May  repair — 

Toll  Slowly. 
Tell  me  now  what  is  your  need,  said  the  lady,  of  this  steed 

That  ye  goad  him  up  the  stair? 
Calm  she  stood!  unbodkined  through, fell  her  dark  hair  to  her  shoe, 

Toll  Slowly. 

And  the  smile  upon  her  face,  ere  she  left  the  tiring-glass, 
Had  not  time  enough  to  go." 

76 


THE    DUCHESS 

Certainly  this  duchess's  smile  lingered  complacently  as 
she  continued : 

"  The  art  of  compliment — it's  becomin'  a  lost  art  like 
all  the  other  arts.  To-day  everybody  is  so  rude  and  mat- 
ter-of-fact. There  is  no  consideration  for  people's  feel- 
in's — I  don't  care  whether  Sir  George  meant  what  he  said 
or  not,  I  like  the  gallantry  of  it,  the  chivalry.  Ah  my 
dear  Mrs.  Gantin,  and  how's  the  Bishop  ?  Of  course, 
these  dreadful  Ritualists,  I  know.  Ten  years  ago  I  told 
Xewman  to  his  face  that,  he  was  only  a  Jesuit  in  disguise. 
But  you  ought  to  give  that  archdeacon  the  sack,  you  really 
ought.  Talkin'  of  the  Scarlet  Woman,  did  you  ever  see 
such  a  painted  creature  in  your  life  ?  Who  is  she  ?  Why, 
the  widow  of  General  Penford  who  was  massacred  at 
Cabul.  Oh  yes,  that's  her  daughter  with  her.  The  moth- 
er says  she's  seventeen,  but  as  the  date  of  the  massacre 
may  be  found  in  the  history  books,  the  widow  is  taking 
heavy  risks  with  her  reputation.  No,  don't  go  away,  my 
dear,"  she  said,  as  the  uninterested  and  forgotten  Alle- 
gra  was  seizing  the  opportunity  to  escape.  "  I'm  so  anx- 
ious to  know  all  about  you.  I  am  sure  I  could  improve 
you.  Do  tell  me  your  name." 

"  Allegra  Marshmont." 

"  What !"  The  duchess  grew  as  vermilion  as  General 
Penford's  widow.  "  That  rascal's  daughter !" 

"  You  are  speaking  of  my  father !" 

"  And  of  my  own  brother.  Tut !  tut !  I  suppose  I 
may  call  my  own  brother  a  rascal." 

"  I— I— didn't  know." 

"  Well,  if  I  didn't  know  I  was  your  Aunt  Emma,  how 
should  you  know  you  were  my  niece  what's-a-name  ?" 

"  Allegra."  She  was  astounded  to  find  herself  so  near 
the  purple,  though  she  had  always  known  vaguely  that 
there  were  coronets  on  the  paternal  horizon. 

"  Allegra !  A  silly  name  for  a  charmin'  gal.  My  niece, 
eh  ?"  And  she  chucked  her  mannishly  under  the  chin. 
"  No  wonder  you're  pooty.  I  thought  I  couldn't  be  such 

77 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

a  fool  as  to  mistake  you  for  Minnie  without  rhyme  or  rea- 
son. But  it's  a  wonder  you  didn't  know  me — everybody 
knows  me." 

"  I  am  very  sorry,"  she  said  simply.  "  But  father 
never  told  me  he  had  a  sister  who  was  a  duchess." 

"Oh!  he  didn't!"  The  Duchess  was  visibly  taken 
aback.  "  It's  the  Marjorimont  blood.  We're  all  so 
proud.  No,  of  course,  I  quite  understand  he'd  cut  the  tip 
of  his  tongue  off  rather  than  mention  us,  once  we  had  cast 
him  off." 

"  Oh  you  cast  him  off !  I  see — because  he  is  against 
the  nobility." 

"  Not  entirely,  it  was  because  of — "  The  Duchess 
stopped,  for  once  prompted  by  an  instinct  of  reticence. 
"  Well,  you  see  it  was  father's  doin'- — I  wasn't  the  Duch- 
ess of  Dalesbury  then.  But  we  all  thought  Tom  crazy — 
and  that's  the  plain  English  of  it — foulin'his  own  nest,up- 
settin'  Property  and  the  Throne  and  the  Church  and  put- 
tin'  power  into  the  hands  of  the  Mob.  You  ought  to  see 
Rosmere  Park  after  we've  let  the  Mob  in ;  saplin's  torn 
up  by  the  root,  greasy  brown  paper  over  the  flower-beds, 
broken  cider-bottles  on  the  paths.  My  dear,  that's  what 
your  father  is  makin'  of  England." 

"  Well,  if  you  think  that,  I  don't  know  that  I  ought  to 
speak  to  you." 

"  Tut !  Tut !  There's  the  Marjorimont  blood  again ! 
I'm  glad  I  met  you,  Alligator.  You  don't  mind  my  calliii' 
you  Alligator?  I  can  remember  that  and  I'm  sure  I 
never  could  remember  the  other  thing.  Some  day  your 
father  and  I  will  make  it  up — now  he's  gettin'  back  into 
his  natural  world  again.  People  make  a  stoopid  distinc- 
tion between  Whig  and  Tory — some  of  my  friends  won't 
come  to  this  house — but  I  always  say  that's  ancient  history. 
Nowadays  it's  just  a  personal  fight  for  the  pickin's — 
the  great  houses  should  stick  by  each  other  against  the 
demagogues  and  the  atheists." 

"  You  mean  honor  among  thieves,"  said  Allegra  calmly. 

78 


THE    DUCHESS 

The  Duchess's  eyes  blazed  like  her  tiara. 

"  You  young — Alligator !"  she  gasped.  Then  she  burst 
into  a  good-humored  laugh.  "  Why  you've  caught  it  from 
Tom.  Poor  silly  little  child,  didn't  I  say  I  could  improve 
you  ?  Not  that  I  don't  admire  your  spirit.  I  forgave  your 
father  the  day  he  took  office.  It's  in  the  blood,  I 
said  to  myself,  you  can't  keep  the  Marjorimonts  down. 
They  may  cut  off  their  noses  to  spite  their  faces,  and  cut 
off  their  names  to  spite  their  relations,  but  they're  bound 
to  rise.  And  after  all,  Tom  hasn't  played  his  cards  badly. 
We  Tories  are  on  the  shelf — the  only  way  he  could  get 
a  chance  was  by  going  over  to  the  Opposition.  But  that 
wouldn't  have  been  very  dignified,  and  besides  the  Whig 
Dukes  wouldn't  have  looked  at  him,  if  he'd  been  a  mere 
commoner  with  a  few  thousands  a  year,  just  enough  to  pay 
for  his  borough.  No,  but  Tom's  invented  a  new  party  all 
to  himself — he's  frightened  'em  with  fee-fi-fo-fum  talk  of 
the  new  ogre — the  People.  He's  got  a  new  paper  all  to 
himself,  that  terrible  Morning  Mirror  which  won't  let  us 
build  war-ships  or  flog  our  soldiers  and  would  be  the  ruin 
of  England,  if  any  one  took  it  seriously.  As  it  is,  it's  only 
the  makin'  of  Tom." 

"  But  it  seems  to  me  people  did  take  it  and  father  seri- 
ously," said  Allegra  stoutly.  She  had  been  lately  reading 
the  back  numbers,  having  discovered  a  file  in  the  nursery 
study. 

"  You  mean  that  dreadful  Law  Tom  forced  on  Parlia- 
ment, which  cuts  down  our  rents,  and  does  the  masses  no 
good — because  we've  less  to  spend  among  'em." 

"  That  is  an  economic  fallacy,"  said  Allegra. 

"  Good  gracious — what  is  the  world  comin'  to !  Such 
a  phrase  in  your  mouth — it's  like  a  cigar !  You  shouldn't 
really  use  such  words,  Alligator.  Why,  you'll  become  like 
that  creature  who  wrote  to  the  Times  the  other  day  to  com- 
plain that  woman  has  no  career,  you'll  be  dressin'  like 
Mrs.  Bloomer.  Economic  fallacy  indeed!  If  it  wasn't 
that  Tom  had  to  find  some  way  of  makin'  himself  felt,  I'd 

.79 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

be  very  angry  with  him.     But  he  won't  do  it  again,  I  am 
sure,  now  he's  in  office." 

"  Oh  yes  he  will — father  hasn't  changed — not  a  bit," 
Allegra  protested  earnestly. 

"  Pooh !  You  know  Tom  Moore's  lines — poor  dear 
Tom  Moore,  I  was  so  fond  of  him,  he  was  such  an  amusin' 
person — 

"  'As  bees  on  flowers  alightin'  cease  their  hum, 
So,  settlin'  upon  places,  Whigs  grow  dumb.'" 

"  But  father  isn't  a  Whig.     He's  a  Radical." 

"  He's  neither — he's  a  Minister,"  laughed  the  Duchess. 

"  A  Minister  to  Humanity,"  Allegra  assented. 

"  A  Privy  Councillor,  a  Right  Honorable,"  said  the 
Duchess  teasingly.  "  Who  already  takes  precedence  of 
Baronets.  By-and-by  he  will  be  in  the  Upper  House." 

"  Never !  He  is  right  and  he  is  honorable.  These  are 
the  only  titles  he  will  ever  crave." 

"  Little  spitfire,  you'll  marry  a  title  yourself.  You 
should  do  almost  as  well  as  my  Minnie.  Ah,  Mr.  Plum- 
ward,  how  de  do  ?  My  daughter  tells  me  you  are  a  useful 
person  to  have  at  a  country  house,  that  you  caper  and  clap 
your  hands  whenever  the  cotillons  slacken." 

The  Beau  Brummel  of  the  ball-room,  accustomed  to  the 
deference  of  princesses,  whose  parties  he  regulated,  was 
taken  aback.  "  Your  Grace  flatters  me,"  he  sneered. 

"  Then  we  must  certainly  have  you  at  Rosmere.  Minnie 
will  be  so  pleased.  Talk  of  the  angel — here  she  is,  Alli- 
gator, lookin'  for  me." 

"  Where  ?"  Allegra  was  anxious  to  know  this  remark- 
able cousin. 

"  Don't  you  see  that  tall  divine  creature  leanin'  on  the 
arm  of  the  distinguished-lookin'  man  with  the  white 
beard?" 

Allegra  stared  at  the  couple  indicated,  but  saw  only  a 
gawky  girl  and  a  hobbling  spectacled  old  man,  and  even 
his  pock-marked  face  did  not  give  him  distinction  in  his 
unvaccinated  generation. 

80 


THE    DUCHESS 

There  must  be  a  mistake.  "  That  couple !"  she  mur- 
mured. 

"  Yes !"  said  the  Duchess,  beamingly  misinterpreting 
her  amazement,  "  That's  the  Duke.  Isn't  he  a  sweet 
creature?  So  devoted,  so  good,  such  an  encyclopaedia. 
Naughty  Minnie  to  desert  her  dotin'  mother,"  she  added, 
as  they  approached. 

Allegra's  shock  was  half  compounded  of  a  question 
whether  she  herself  really  looked  like  that.  An  impres- 
sion that  she  was  pretty — gathered  from  governesses  and 
old  gentlemen,  and  supporting  her  in  comfort — quaked 
under  her.  Of  course  she  knew  Joan  didn't  approve  of 
her  pointed  chin,  but  then  others — 

"  This  is  my  niece,  Alligator,  Tom's  gal." 

The  old  gentleman  looked  as  amazed  as  Allegra. 

"  Your  niece  ?  Alligator  ?"  The  words  sounded 
husky,  and  as  if  muffled  by  his  beard.  Allegra  had  an 
odd  sense  of  his  soul  being  wrapped  up  in  it  against  the 
cold  world. 

"  Well,  Ally  something,"  said  the  Duchess.  "  I  call  her 
Alligator  for  short,  and  she  doesn't  mind,  do  you,  dear  ? 
And  this  is  my  Minnie.  Isn't  she  sweet  ?  You  may  kiss 
each  other,  dears — first  cousins." 

Both  girls  hung  back  awkwardly.  But  Allegra  said 
smiling,  "  You  are  the  first  cousin  I've  ever  met." 

"  Oh,  indeed !"  cried  Minnie  restored  to  speech.  "  I've 
got  lots,  all  sorts — firsts,  seconds  and  thirds — like  railway 
passengers." 

"  Ah,  always  the  witty  word !"  cried  the  Duchess. 
"  You  can't  catch  my  Minnie  asleep." 

The  Duke  here  took  Allegra's  hand  and  held  it.  "  So 
you  are  Tom  Marshmont's  daughter." 

"  One  of  them." 

"  What !    Are  there  more  ?"  screamed  the  Duchess. 

"  Lots  more.     Connie,  Dulsie,  Mabel — ' 

"  Stop !  Stop !  I  won't  have  anything  to  do  with  them. 
I  dare  say  they  are  horrid.  You  can't  have  more  than  one 
81 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

nice  gal  in  a  family.  All  my  sisters  were  frumps.  But 
you — I'm  goin'  to  take  you  in  charge.  You're  comin'  to 
stay  with  us  at  Rosmere  in  the  autumn,  isn't  she,  Dales- 
bury?" 

"  Certainly,  certainly,"  said  the  Duke,  still  retaining 
Allegra's  hand. 

"  There,  isn't  he  a  darling  ?  Never  a  wish  of  mine  but 
he  anticipates  it.  That's  the  kind  of  husband  we're  goin* 
to  find  for  you  at  Rosmere." 

Allegra  was  now  one  flame,  for  the  Duchess  did  not 
at  all  moderate  her  tones,  and  the  Duke  was  patting  her 
hand  with  the  hand  that  did  not  hold  it. 

"  But  father  may  object,"  she  stammered. 

"  Object  ?  To  your  gettin'  married  ?  Fiddlesticks ! 
With  all  those  gals  on  his  shoulders.  Everybody  knows 
we  have  the  most  charmin'  young  men — they're  simply 
crazy  to  come  to  Rosmere — the  very  pick  of  the  heirs." 

"  Oh  I  see  my  father !"  cried  Allegra  in  glad  relief. 
"  Over  there  by  the  pillar.  If  you  will  excuse  me,  Duch- 
ess." And  she  withdrew  her  hand  from  the  Duke's. 

"  Only  if  you  bring  him  to  me — he'll  do  instead  of  Lord 
Henry.  There !  I  knew  my  instinct  was  sound  in  send- 
in'  you  to  fetch  some  one.  Run,  run,  I'm  dyin'  to  scold 
him!" 

Allegra  hesitated.     "  If  he  will  come — " 

"  Come  ?  Of  course  he'll  come.  Dear  Tom,  the  same 
old  boy,  just  a  bit  fatter,  that's  all.  I  see  one  of  your 
elder  sisters  is  with  him — bless  my  soul  if  she  isn't  nearly 
as  good-lookin'  as  you !  We'll  marry  her  too !" 

Allegra  laughed  merrily.     "  Why  she  is  married!" 

"  To  who  ?"  The  Duchess  was  not  pedantically  gram- 
matical. 

"  To  my  father." 

It  took  some  instants  for  the  full  bearing  of  the  jest 
to  penetrate  through  the  Duchess's  tiara.  The  Duke  was 
already  smiling. 

His  wife  turned  on  him.  "  I  don't  see  any  call  for 

82 


"  '  YOUR  NIECK  ?      ALLIGATOR  ?' 


THE    DUCHESS 

sniggerin'.     I  didn't  know  Tom  had  married  again.     I 
thought  from  the  odd  resemblance  it  must  be  your  sister." 

"  It's  not  my  step-mother,  it's  my  mother." 

The  Duke  chuckled. 

"  You  have  a  peculiar  sense  of  humor,  Dalesbury," 
said  his  wife  freezingly.  "  But  really  in  these  days  of 
paint  and  powder,  you  can't  tell  a  gal  from  an  old 
'ooman." 

Allegra's  haughtiness  matched  the  Duchess's. 

"  My  mother  is  not  painted.  She  has  always  been  the 
most  beautiful  creature  in  the  world." 

"Tut,  tut!"  said  the  Duchess.  "Every  child  thinks 
its  own  mother  the  best.  Well,  well,  run  to  your  mammy, 
if  you're  so  fond  of  her." 

Allegra  hesitated.  "  And  am  I  to  tell  my  father  that 
you — " 

"  No,  no,  tell  him  nothing.  I  won't  see  him  just  now. 
He — he  is  so  occupied  with  his  wife — we  can't  meet  after 
all  these  years  before  a  stranger.  You  understand,  Alli- 
gator." 

"  Yes,  I  understand,"  said  Allegra,  and  thought  she 
did,  till  she  came  to  think  it  over. 

The  gawky  girl  blocked  her  path  with  an  offered  hand. 

"  Good-by,  Ally,"  she  said.  "  I'm  sure  it  isn't  gator. 
I  hope  we  shall  meet  again." 

"  I  hope  so."     And  Allegra  sought  her  father. 

"  Why,  what  became  of  you  ?"  he  cried  playfully. 
"  You've  missed  such  a  treat.  I  wanted  to  introduce  you 
to — guess !" 

"  Tennyson,"  she  gasped. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  That  lion  stays  in  his  den — but 
one  nearly  his  equal  in  name  and  mane." 

"Deldon!" 

He  nodded,  laughing. 

"  Where  is  he  ?     Where  is  he  ?" 

"  Lost,  swallowed  up.  I  was  thunderstruck  to  see  the 
Poet  of  the  People  asked  here." 

83 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  It  seems  to  me  quite  natural.  Aren't  they  going  to 
bring  in  the  Reform  Bill  he  cries  for  ?" 

"  I  suppose  they  were — when  he  was  asked,"  he  said 
with  melancholy  humor. 

"  If  you  mean  the  long-haired  doll,  there  he  is !"  Mrs. 
Marshmont  broke  in. 

Allegra's  eyes  dilated.  She  stared  in  perturbation 
at  the  first  poet  she  had  ever  seen. 

For  once  no  disillusion  awaited  her. 

Blue-eyed,  with  a  high  marble  forehead  and  pendent 
flaxen  locks,  tall  and  graceful  of  figure,  faultless  yet  care- 
less of  costume,  and  departing  from  the  conventions  of 
evening  dress  by  a  florid  tie,  the  young  Deldon,  encircled 
by  beautiful  ladies,  incarnated  all  the  Cornucopian  ideas. 
She  wished  she  could  have  added  herself  to  his  worship- 
pers. What  was  he  saying  now  ?  Could  he  talk  prose 
at  all?  Unconsciously  she  moved  towards  him,  towing 
her  parents,  and  by  straining  her  ears  heard  him  say  one 
word — the  word  "  ~No  " — of  which  it  was  hard  to  say, 
whether  it  was  prose  or  poetry.  Had  he  said  "  IsTay  "  she 
would  have  had  a  stronger  thrill.  But  she  extracted  con- 
solation from  its  significance,  for  she  had  heard  the  femi- 
nine question  to  which  it  was  a  reply.  "  Don't  you  write 
feverishly,  Mr.  Deldon,  and  so  rapidly  that  you  don't 
know  what  you've  written  till  you  see  it  on  the  paper  ?" 

"  No,"  said  the  Poet. 

"  I'm  so  sorry,"  said  the  lady,  naively.  "  I  thought 
/  was  inspired." 

Allegra's  sense  of  humor  was  tickled,  and  she  was  mov- 
ing nearer  to  catch  the  Poet's  rejoinder.  But  her  moth- 
er's impatient  "  Where's  Dulsie  and  Mabel  ?"  arrested 
her. 

"  Dulsie's  with  some  Egyptian  Emir  now,  I  think,  but 
Mabel  I've  lost." 

"  Well,  go  and  find  them.  It's  very  dull  here.  We 
must  go."  She  spoke  sharply  and  several  people  eyed 
her,  amazed  by  her  candor  and  her  beauty.  Occasionally 

84  __ 


THE    DUCHESS 

Mrs.  Marshmont  would  crave  for  the  grand  world,  but> 
invariably  it  bored  her.     This  did  not  prevent  her  from 
craving  again,  as  soon  as  she  had  forgotten  her  feelings. 

"  I  don't  think,  mother,  that  Dulsie  will  like  to  go  home 
just  yet,"  Allegra  suggested  slyly. 

"  Then  it  will  be  good  for  Dulsie's  soul  not  to  follow  the 
desire  of  her  heart,  and  the  inclination  of  her  eyes.  When 
I  was  a  girl,  the  only  party  I  went  to  was  the  tea  party 
at  a  funeral.  But  they  were  a  good  deal  more  enjoyable 
than  these  political  parties." 

Allegra  suppressed  the  desire  to  point  out  that  at  that 
rate  her  mother  had  fared  as  well  as  Dulsie,  and  Mrs. 
Marshmont  continued :  "  I  don't  really  see  what  Dulsie 
can  find  to  attract  her.  I  would  rather  be  at  home  with 
my  rat." 

"  There  are  rats  here,  too,  my  dear,"  said  Marshmont, 
smiling. 

Allegra's  eyes  flashed  first  with  amused  apprehension, 
then  with  wrathful  remembrance.  "  That's  what  she  said 
you  would  be,  father." 

"Who  said?" 

"  The  Duchess  of  Dalesbury!" 

"  The  Duchess.     Why,  you  have  never  met  her  ?" 

"  Yes,  father.  Just  now.  She  wanted  me  to  fetch  you 
to  her." 

Mrs.  Marshmont  interposed  sharply.  "  She  wanted  you 
to  fetch  father,  like  a  pet  rat  ?" 

Father  and  daughter  laughed. 

"  ^o,  mother,  she  wanted  to  make  it  up  with  father ;  she 
seemed  very  fond  of  him  still." 

Mrs.  Marshmont's  eyes  blazed.  "  Fond  of  him  still  ?" 
she  repeated,  with  bewildered  jealousy. 

"  Stupid  old  darling,"  he  whispered.  "  She's  my 
sister." 

"  Your  sister !"  she  cried,  even  more  bewildered  and 
even  more  angry.  "  And  why  did  you  never  tell  me  that  ? 
And  why  don't  we  see  her?  She  might  have  been  very 

85    . 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

useful  to  the  girls.  But  how  comes  your  sister  to  be  a 
Duchess  ?  You're  not  a  Duke,"  she  ended  confusedly. 

"  No,  but  her  husband  is,"  Allegra  explained. 

"  Oh,  I  see,  of  course.     Any  one  can  be  a  Duchess." 

"  The  easiest  thing  in  the  world,"  Marshmont  said  dry- 
ly. The  ennobled  Emma  had  become  very  shadowy  to 
him :  to  his  low-born  wife,  Society,  conscious  of  the  breach, 
had  refrained  from  speaking  of  her.  "  And  so  Allegra, 
you've  been  talking  to  my  sister  ?" 

u  Yes,  we  had  a  long  chat." 

"  Who  introduced  you  to  her  ?" 

"  Nobody.  She  just  talked  to  me.  She  thought  mother 
was  my  sister."  Allegra  took  her  mother's  hand  and  press- 
ed it  with  some  of  her  old  affection. 

Marshmont  was  radiant  with  pride  in  his  wonderful 
wife-pet.  "  And  what  did  you  think  of  my  sister  ?"  he 
asked. 

"Candidly?" 

"  Of  course." 

"  Well,  she  seems  to  me  the  vulgarest  and  most  con- 
ceited person  I  have  ever  met." 

"  Oh  Allegra!"     Mrs.  Marshmont  was  shocked. 

He  laughed.     "  Oh !  Emma's  not  so  bad  as  that." 

"  Well,  you  haven't  met  her  for  centuries." 

"  Perhaps  you  are  right,"  he  said  meditatively.  "  When 
I  knew  her  she  was  merely  the  eldest  Miss  Marjorimont. 
Duchesses  deteriorate." 


CHAPTER  IX 

FIZZY    FALLS 

ALLEGRA  was  cantering  in  the  Park  a  few  days  later, 
-£A.  attended  by  burly  Wilson  the  coachman  in  the  charac- 
ter of  groom,  when  a  more  agreeable  cavalier  attached 
himself  to  her;  none  other  than  William  Fitzwinter, 
M.  P.,  in  his  flawless  equestrian  attire,  on  a  tall  black 
horse. 

"  Its  name  is  IsTovabarba,"  he  told  her  as  they  slackened 
to  a  trot.  Allegra  inquired  its  connection  with  the  storm- 
centre  of  foreign  politics. 

"  !N"one.  It's  my  latest  horse,  that's  all.  Nova,  new, 
Barba,  a  barb." 

"  Oh !"  said  Allegra,  disappointed.  Then  smartly, 
"  Well,  I  hope  it  never  will  be  beaten." 

His  joyous  roar  of  laughter  applauded  the  jest.  "  A 
hundredfold  better  reason.  I  adopt  it  forthwith.  But  let 
us  keep  it  to  ourselves,  else  we  shall  be  torn  to  pieces. 
What  would  your  brother  say !" 

"  My  brother !"  Allegra  made  a  mouth.  "  He  actually 
says  he  hopes  there  will  be  fighting  when  he  gets  there." 

"  I'm  afraid  he'll  have  his  wish."  And  Fizzy  looked 
grave. 

"  Then  I  wish  he  would  fight  on  the  Novabarbese  side." 

"  Be  careful !  That  was  the  Chevalier  Garda  on  the  gray 
horse — an  Italian  blackmailer." 

"  And  what  is  a  blackmailer  ?" 

"  Heaven  guard  your  innocence,  my  dear  child,  and  may 
you  never  learn!  But  for  your  father's  sake,  don't  say 
things  against  Britain  aloud !" 

87 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  But  you  say  them  in  the  Morning  Mirror." 

"  Ah,  you  read  the  Mirror?" 

"  Of  course." 

"  Then  write  your  views  there!     It  will  be  safer." 

Allegra  checked  her  horse  while  her  heart  set  off  at  a 
gallop.  What !  The  world  of  print  was  thrown  open  to 
her! 

"  But  I  can't  write — at  least  not  articles — "  she  stam- 
mered. Her  eyes  and  cheeks  sparkled  bewitchingly ;  the 
outlines  of  her  young  form  revealed  by  the  riding-habit 
had  an  appealing  grace. 

"  What  can  you  write  ?" 

"  I — I've  tried  verses." 

"  The  very  thing !  Deldon's  terms  are  becoming  impos- 
sible— since  he's  been  taken  up  by  Society.  You  shall  be 
the  new  Poet  of  the  People." 

"But  how  could  I?"  she  gasped.  "Write  like  Del- 
don  !"  But  all  the  same  the  Cornucopia  suddenly  seemed 
poor  and  shrunken. 

"  If  I  put  his  name  to  your  poems,  nobody  would  know 
the  difference,"  Fizzy  exclaimed  airily. 

"  Oh,  how  can  you  say  that  ?" 

"  See  it  in  your  eyes !"  And  he  looked  into  them.  She 
laughed  with  girlish  glee  as  she  touched  up  her  horse. 
"  Do  they  roll  in  a  fine  frenzy  ?" 

"  They're  the  finest  eyes  I've  ever  seen,"  he  replied, 
giving  chase. 

By  some  mysterious  instinct  Allegra  urged  her  animal 
to  its  swiftest.  "  That  was  not  fair,"  he  said,  as  he  came 
up  at  last.  "  You  know  I  could  never  beat  Novabarba 
again." 

"  And  /  beat  him !"  she  cried,  in  gay  remorse.  "  What 
a  bad  omen !" 

Three  days  later  she  met  Mr.  Fitzwinter  again.  In  the 
mean  time  she  had  written  and  torn  up  several  Poems  for 
the  People. 

"  You  don't  ride  every  day  ?"  he  said  inquiringly, 

88 


FIZZY  FALLS 

"  No.  You  see  we  girls  have  only  one  saddle-horse 
between  us.  Tuesday  and  Friday  are  my  lucky  days." 

"  My  lucky  days,  you  mean." 

"  Why,  what  can  it  matter  to  you  ?"  asked  Allegra 
frankly. 

Fizzy  coughed.  "  I  don't  like  one-horse  affairs,  as  they 
say  in  the  States.  I'd  like  to  see  you  with  a  horse  of  your 
own." 

"  Oh,  wouldn't  that  be  lovely  ?"  she  cried  wistfully. 
And  another  rhyme  of  the  Duchess  May  floated  through 
her  brain. 

"  Then  the  good  steed's  rein  she  took,  and  his  neck  did  kiss  and  stroke. 

Toll  Slowly. 

So  he  neighed  to  answer  her;  and  then  followed  up  the  stair, 
For  the  love  of  her  sweet  look." 

Fizzy  began  to  describe  his  rides  in  Algeria.  He  told 
her  of  the  mysterious  underground  telegraph  of  the  desert, 
wherein  you  will  be  astonished  to  find  the  Chief  of  the 
Tribe  expecting  you,  though  you  have  come  at  a  gallop 
unannounced,  and  he  fascinated  her  with  the  idea  of  one 
day  tasting  for  herself  the  charm  of  the  East,  and 
the  life  in  the  tents.  He  insinuated  he  must  be  at 
hand  to  protect  her,  for  there  were  lawless  hordes  who 
captured  you  and  demanded  blood-money  of  your  rela- 
tives. Allegra  suggested  smilingly,  not  without  a  shadowy 
thought  of  her  mother,  that  they  must  sometimes  blunder 
into  capturing  somebody  whose  return  was  not  urgently 
desiderated.  Fizzy  admitted  that  there  was  bad  luck  in 
all  businesses,  but  that  in  her  own  case  he  would  be  glad 
if  her  relatives  refused  to  redeem  her,  as  that  would  give 
him  a  chance.  Allegra  laughed  girlishly  and  said  she 
thought  her  father  would  raise  the  ransom,  or  at  the  worst 
Tom  would  ride  to  her  rescue  at  the  head  of  a  squadron  of 
Dragoons. 

"  What !  and  provoke  new  complications  with  the  Pow- 
ers! Fancy  the  questions  there  would  be  in  the  House 
about  you !" 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  That  would  be  nice.  How  important  I  should  feel ! 
I  might  have  a  Blue-Book  all  to  myself." 

"  I  would  contribute  a  great  speech  about  you." 

"  There  might  be  a  Royal  Commission  on  me." 

"  Goodness — what  a  lot  you  know  about  politics !  What 
a  wife  you  would  make  for  a  politician !" 

"  No,  I  wouldn't.  Why,  I've  never  heard  a  speech  in 
my  life!" 

"  You  amaze  me.  Never  been  to  the  House  ?  Never 
heard  your  father  speak  ?" 

"  Only  to  the  bullfinch." 

"  What !  He  rehearses  sometimes."  Fizzy 's  roar  of 
laughter — so  disproportionate  to  his  size — shook  the  rep- 
utable air  of  the  Row. 

"  Don't  you?"  she  asked. 

"Never!" 

"  But  you  are  so  clever !  Something  always  comes  to 
your  tongue." 

He  beamed.  Then  lugubriously  he  said  "  But  it  doesn't 
always  come  to  my  tongue ....  You  must  come  to  the 
House  and  hear  me  one  day,  won't  you?"  he  wound  up 
after  a  pause. 

"  I  should  like  to  ever  so  much.  Only  father  never 
seems  to  think  of  it." 

"  You  shall  explore  his  den  in  the  basement  and  climb 
to  the  Clock  Tower  in  the  firmament." 

Her  eyes  shone.  "  But  you  will  be  sure  to  speak  the 
day  I  come  ?" 

"  Sure.  Perhaps — perhaps — I  will  ask  a  question  in 
the  House." 

"  No,  I  bargain  for  a  full  speech,"  she  said.  "  In  your 
most  amusing  vein." 

This  seemed  to  silence  him  altogether,  and  presently 
Allegra  turned  her  horse  homewards.  As  Fizzy  waved 
his  hat  in  farewell,  she  realized  with  a  pang  of  disappoint- 
ment that  he  had  not  said  one  word  about  the  People's 
Poems.  It  was  particularly  vexing,  because  just  now 

90 


FIZZY   FALLS 

a  really  good  chorus  was  buzzing  in  her  brain,  beginning : 

"Back,  back  from  Novabarba, 
Like  Christ  be  meekly  bold. 
Teach  Europe  England's  honor, 
And  not  her  love  of  gold." 

Anyway,  it  ought  not  to  be  lost.  The  Cornucopia  expand- 
ed to  its  ancient  dimensions. 

But  the  next  day  a  beautiful  bay  mare  pawed  at  her 
door-step.  It  bore  a  card  "  For  Miss  Allegra  Marshmont, 
with  Mr.  William  Fitzwinter's  humble  request  that  she 
will  not  look  in  its  mouth.  Its  name  is  Reform." 

Allegra,  summoned  from  Parnassus  and  Novabarba, 
had  a  whirl  of  emotions.  "  But  I  can't  accept  such  a  beau- 
tiful present." 

"  Why  not  ?"  said  Mrs.  Marshmont  who  had  rushed 
indecorously  to  the  hall  door  and  was  now  caressing  the 
creature's  nose. 

"  But  Mr.  Fitzwinter  is  practically  a  stranger !" 

"  Did  you  expect  anything  from  your  relatives  ?  Look 
at  that  old  Duchess.  I  call  it  shameful." 

"  I  can't  accept  it  all  the  same.  Please  take  it  back 
with  my  thanks,"  she  said  to  the  man. 

"  Arxin'  your  pardon,  miss,  but  I  was  told  to  say  your 
father's  daughter  couldn't  reject  Reform."  Allegra  smiled. 

"  Put  on  your  habit  at  once,"  said  her  mother  im- 
periously, "  and  try  its  paces." 

And  within  a  few  minutes,  Allegra,  dazed  and  daz- 
zled, was  passing  out  of  the  drive,  while  her  mother  posted 
herself  between  the  stone  lions  at  the  gate,  surveying  her 
critically. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  could  ride  so  well,"  she  said,  as  Re- 
form thundered  up  for  the  third  time. 

Allegra  sprang  down,  glowing  and  blushing.  "  She's 
a  darling.  I  must  write  at  once  to  thank  him." 

"  I  don't  know  that  you  ought  to  write  to  a  gentleman," 
said  Mrs.  Marshmont. 

"  Why  not  ?"  said  Allegra,  guiltily  conscious  of  a  whole 

91 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

series  of  letters — albeit  pseudonymous — to  the  Editor  of 
the  Cornucopia. 

"  It  isn't  right  for  young  ladies.  I  am  sure  Dulsie  or 
Mabel  never  would.  I'll  write  myself." 

Allegra  gasped.  A  panorama  of  Dulsie's  admirers 
passed  before  her,  like  the  picture  of  the  races  of  man- 
kind in  her  early  geography  book :  she  thought  of  Dulsie's 
secret  correspondence  in  French,  German,  and  even  Italian, 
and  Dulsie's  plea  that  flirtation  was  the  cheapest  method  of 
learning  languages,  but  though  she  did  not  approve  of 
Dulsie,  her  tongue  was  tied.  She  contented  herself  for  the 
moment  with  sending  verbal  thanks  through  the  man. 
Mrs.  Marshmont  proved  too  lazy  to  write  the  letter,  and  the 
father  agreed  to  do  it.  As,  however,  the  sickly  secretary, 
his  honorable  relative,  continued  to  confine  his  work  to 
Whitehall,  and  Allegra  had  now  the  privilege  of  helping 
with  the  home  correspondence,  it  ended  in  Allegra  really 
writing  the  letter  herself,  though  her  father  signed  it. 

"  My  dear  Fitzwinter,"  it  ran.  "  My  little  girl  desires  me  to  ex- 
press her  deep  gratitude  for  your  very  kind  and  valuable  gift,  and 
though  she  is  sorry  you  have  put  yourself  to  so  much  trouble  for  her. 
and  is  puzzled  to  think  how  she  has  deserved  it,  she  is  delighted  with 
Reform.  Allegra  has  the  advantage  of  us,  for  while  we  have  to 
carry  Reform,  Reform  will  carry  her.  And  now  since  you  have 
done  her  a  kindness,  will  you  do  me  one?  In  the  Morning  Mirror 
you  said  the  other  day  that  my  eloquence  has  been  unsurpassed  since 
the  days  of  Demosthenes;  surely,  such  eulogies  should  be  reserved 
for  poor  Bryden  (at  the  unveiling  of  whose  bust,  by-the-way,  I  am  to 
preside  as  soon  as  Parliament  rises).  I  do  wish  you  would  estab- 
lish the  proper  perspective  in  these  matters.  You  know  you  have 
never  read  a  line  of  Demosthenes.  Everybody  agrees  that  it  was  our 
lost  leader  whose  lips  were  touched  with  the  sacred  coal,  while  I  am 
only  a  man  of  facts  and  figures.  I  would  have  drawn  your  attention 
to  this  in  the  House,  but  you  were  always  so  surrounded,  and  if  I  had 
beckoned  you  away  privately,  the  lobbies  would  have  buzzed  with 
grandiose  rumors.  Of  your  'hinted  foreshadowing  in  the  Mirror  of 
my  resignation,  in  the  event  of  the  Cabinet  sanctioning  hostilities  in 
Novabarba,  I  have  less  ground  to  complain.  It  would  seriously 
prejudice  my  action,  if  I  were  a  politician,  but  as  I  am  not,  I  am 
ready  to  meet  whatever  position  arises,  heedless  of  rumor  or  repute. 

"  Believe  me,  my  dear  Fit/winter,  with  kind  regards,  and  renewals 
of  my  daughter's  gratitude, 

Yours  sincerely, 

THOMAS  MARSHMONT." 

92 


FIZZY   FALLS 

To  which  Fizzy  replied  laconically :  "  As  to  poor  Bry- 
den,  you  know  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  any  good  in 
the  dead  languages.  Dead  men  turn  no  votes.  Your 
speeches  are  alive  and  kicking.  When  Feudalism  is  kick- 
ed to  death,  let  the  '  proper  perspective  '  be  established. 
The  utmost  concession  I  will  make  meantime  is  that  you 
are  the  greatest  living  orator." 

Allegra  did  not  meet  the  greatest  living  journalist  for 
some  days,  because  all  the  other  girls  wanted  to  try  Re- 
form. Each  in  turn  reported  meeting  Mr.  Fitzwinter, 
who  had  only,  however,  raised  his  hat  as  he  flew  by.  But 
at  last  her  own  turn  came  round,  and  in  the  new  pride  of 
possession  she  was  dashing  along  the  sunlit  mould  when 
^ovabarba  advanced  to  meet  her.  She  drew  rein,  and  re- 
peated her  thanks.  Fizzy  stopped  her  with  :  "  Your  father 
has  already  scolded  me  sufficiently." 

"  Ah,  that  was  for  overpraising  his  oratory." 

"  My  dear  child,  if  you  had  ever  been  to  the  House  and 
listened  to  the  other  men's  speeches,  you  would  see  that 
any  exaggeration  is  pardonable." 

"  Yes,"  she  said  meditatively.  "  I  suppose  it  must  be 
dreadful  to  listen  to  those  tiresome  Tory  speeches." 

"  I  shouldn't  say  the  Tories  have  a  monopoly — " 

"  Well,  twaddle  without  even  truth — !" 

He  roared  again.  "  Excellent — excellent — the  greatest 
wit  since  Aristophanes.  That's  what  you'll  become  if 
you're  not  careful." 

"  You  mean  if  the  Mirror  is  not  careful,"  she  laughed 
back.  Then  fearing  that  the  mention  of  the  Mirror  might 
seem  an  indelicate  reminder  of  his  invitation  to  its  col- 
umns, she  went  on  quickly :  "  But  seriously,  how  do  you  en- 
dure the  flood  of  talk  ?" 

"  I  don't.  I  escape  to  the  Ararat  of  the  smoking- 
room." 

"  Your  Ararat  is  a  volcano." 

"  Now  don't  blame  the  Mirror,  Miss  Aristophanes." 

She  flushed,  reminded  again  of  her  poor  poem.  "  But 

93 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

aren't  there  some  members  who  sit  through  it  all,  who 
listen  to  everything  from  mid-day  to  midnight  ?" 

"  There  is  one  such  person — and  one  only — who  listens 
and  listens  to  every  syllable,  every  '  hem '  and  '  er  ' — 
who  dares  not  even  seek  refuge  in  sleep,  through  whose 
ears  pours  or  rather  dribbles  the  whole  drearisome,  weari- 
some flood." 

"Who  is  that?" 

"  He  is  called — supreme  irony — the  Speaker !" 

Allegra  laughed  heartily.  "  You  see  what  a  poor  poli- 
tician I  am.  I've  heard  father  say  he  was  dining  with  the 
Speaker,  but  I  never  quite  understood  what  the  Speaker 
had  to  do." 

"  Yes,  the  Speaker  is  the  Listener.  He  gets  paid  royally 
for  it  and  he  has  a  house  within  the  House,  so  as  to  get 
to  sleep  as  early  as  possible.  But  it's  a  wonder  he  doesn't 
end  in  a  lunatic  asylum." 

"  He  does  end  in  the  House  of  Lords,  doesn't  he  ?" 

"  Yes ;  that  is  his  reward — even  worse  speeches,  but  not 
to  have  to  listen  to  them." 

"  But  they  don't  read  so  badly  in  the  papers." 

"  No,  we  polish  'em  up  and  cut  'em  down ;  l  establish  the 
proper  perspective,'  as  your  father  puts  it.  By-the-way 
what  a  pretty  feminine  hand  he  writes." 

Allegra  could  only  mechanically  quicken  Reform  to  a 
trot. 

"  I  wish  I  had  somebody  to  lend  me  a  hand  like  that," 
Fizzy  continued. 

"  You !     You  must  have  a  hundred." 

"ABriareus!     How?     Where?" 

"  At  the  Mirror,  of  course,"  tripped  off  Allegra's  lips ; 
and  again  she  flushed  delicately  and  hastened  to  add: 
"  Everybody  has  secretaries." 

"  But  not  secretaries  with  soft  hands  and  bright  eyes." 

Allegra  felt  vaguely  uneasy.  "  What  have  bright  eyes 
to  do  with  writing  letters  ?"  she  murmured. 

"  Letters  can't  be  written  without  eyes." 

94 


FIZZY  FALLS 

"  Is  that  a  pun  ?"  she  asked,  more  easily. 

"  As  if  I  would  dare  do  such  a  thing!" 

Allegra  laughed.     "  I  think  you  would  dare  anything." 

"  No — I  have  my  limits.  There  is  something  I  want 
very  much  to  do.  But  I  don't  dare." 

"  I  don't  believe  it."  He  was  silent  and  her  mind 
drifted  to  the  simultaneous  beating  of  the  horses'  hoofs, 
finding  pleasure  in  the  rhythm. 

"  It's  true,"  he  said  at  last,  and  his  voice  was  low  and 
husky,  "  I  want  a  wife." 

"  Well,  aren't  there  hundreds  ?"  She  spoke  lightly  but 
her  pulses  began  to  throb  with  dim  disquiet. 

He  tried  to  answer  in  the  same  key.  "  Where  ?  At 
the  Mirror?" 

"  Now  you  have  dared  to  make  a  pun !" 

"  Please  forgive  me.  It  was  a  pure  accident.  I  only 
meant  to  echo  what  you  said  before." 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  she  murmured. 

"  But  since  I  have  dared  to  make  the  pun,  I  might  dare 
further."  His  voice  grew  husky  again. 

"  The  man  who  would  make  a  pun — "  she  quoted  jest- 
ingly, but  with  gathering  discomfort. 

"  Would  pick  a  wife.     Just  so.     But  where  ?" 

"  You  have  been  all  over  the  world,  you  ought  to 
know." 

"  Ah,  but  now  I  am  in  a  new  world  altogether,  and  I 
feel  so  strange,  and  I  don't  know  the  language.  Can't 
you  help  me  out  ?" 

He  leaned  from  his  saddle  towards  her.  Her  sus- 
picions were  growing  momently  more  definite  and  pain- 
ful, but  what  she  perceived  most  vividly  was  that  there 
were  beads  of  perspiration  on  his  forehead,  and  she  felt 
dully  that  she  had  made  him  ride  too  fast  in  the  hot  sun. 
How  strange  his  eyes  were!  And  hardly  any  lashes! 
Why  had  she  never  noticed  that  before  ? 

"  Give  me  a  word,"  he  half  whispered. 

"  What  word  ?"  she  said  helplessly. 

95 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Any  word  except  '  No.' ' 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  she  breathed. 

They  rode  on  in  a  painful  silence.  So  this  was  that 
wonderful  thing — a  proposal!  How  curious  and  disap- 
pointing— not  unlike  a  Duchess!  How  cold  and  leaden 
her  heart  seemed  in  her  breast,  yet  how  fiery  her  cheeks 
felt !  To  think  that  love — associated  only  with  the  Shel- 
leys  and  the  Deldons  of  the  world — should  incarnate  itself 
in  the  dapper  person  of  a  newspaper  proprietor !  A  man 
who  had  seemed  to  sneer  at  all  romance,  and  to  see  behind 
the  veil  of  everything!  She  felt  like  laughing  and  she 
felt  like  crying,  and  presently  she  was  only  listening  pleas- 
urably  again  to  the  rhythmical  beating  of  the  horses'  hoofs. 
What  a  lovely  breeze  fanning  her  hot  face !  Was  her  hat 
straight?  Her  net  seemed  slipping  backward.  Suddenly 
she  bethought  herself  with  a  start  that  she  would  have  to 
give  back  Reform.  Her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

They  passed  several  ladies  whom  Mr.  Fitzwinter  saluted 
with  his  wonted  gallantry.  Allegra  found  her  voice. 

"  There  are  so  many  women  in  the  world,"  she  said. 

"  But  only  one  Allegra."  He  had  got  it  out  now  at  last 
in  the  most  unoriginal  fashion.  But  her  name  on  his  lips 
frightened  the  girl.  She  felt  the  situation  even  more  em- 
barrassing than  her  interview  with  the  Queen.  In  both 
the  problem  was  to  go  backwards  gracefully. 

"  I  must  really  be  turning  home  now,"  she  said  awk- 
wardly. 

"  I  had  hoped  to  change  your  home."  His  voice  was 
quite  hoarse. 

"  I  am  too  young — just  out  of  short  frocks.  I  couldn't 
possibly  suit  a  man  of  your  age." 

He  winced.  "  I  am  the  best  judge  of  that,"  he  mut- 
tered. 

"  But  I  never  dreamed  you  wanted  to  marry — any- 
body !"  Allegra  was  gravely  distressed. 

"  I  didn't — only  you !" 

"  Oh  please,  don't  be  vexed.     T  am  so  sorry." 

96 


FIZZY   FALLS 

"  Don't  you  like  me — just  a  little  bit  ?" 

"  I  like  you  a  great  deal.  I  think  you  are  a  force  for 
good,  though  you  pretend  not  to  care.  You  are  going  to 
help  England." 

"  And  yet  you  won't  help  me !" 

Allegra  turned  from  red  to  white.  Here  was  a  new 
idea.  Could  she  really  help  this  man  in  his  life  work? 
If  so  was  there  not  a  call  upon  her  ?  Was  not  this  indeed 
the  role  of  which  she  had  dreamed  so  much  of  late — the 
true  woman's  role,  to  sweeten  life  for  some  great  strong 
man  ?  But  no !  This  man  was  too  strong  and  not  great 
enough.  He  neither  needed  nor  dominated  her.  He  was 
not  a  great,  weak,  loving  creature  like  her  father.  She 
sought  for  words  to  soften  her  refusal.  But  he  saw  her 
hesitation.  "  Don't  decide  in  a  hurry,  Allegra,"  he  plead- 
ed. "  Let  us  talk  of  other  things — about — about  those 
poems  for  the  Mirror." 

She  saw  now  the  Mirror  must  be  given  up,  too,  and  again 
her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  How  tiresome  life  was !  But 
she  felt  it  was  no  use  letting  her  unexpected  suitor  indulge 
hopes — it  was  kinder  to  stamp  them  out  like  the  scorched 
moths. 

"  Yes.  I  would  rather  talk  of  other  things,"  she  said 
bluntly,  "  and  I  never  wish  to  talk  of  this  thing  again." 

He  replied  with  welcome  lightness :  "  This  is  the  first 
time  I  have  ever  proposed.  I'm  thrown  at  the  first  fence." 

"  But  you  said  you  had  done  everything  except  pray," 
she  reminded  him,  gladly  catching  his  tone. 

"  Proposing  is  praying.     Yes  and  confession,  too !" 

"  I  absolve  you  then.     Go  and  sin  no  more." 

"  I  had  already  planned  out  the  wedding  number  of  the 
Mirror,"  he  said,  returning  to  melancholy.  "  All  framed 
in  gold,  in  place  of  the  black  we  had  when  Bryden 
died." 

Allegra  ignored  the  gold  and  pounced  on  the  black.  She 
said  she  had  persuaded  her  father  to  let  her  accompany 
him — in  her  new  character  of  amanuensis — to  the  Bi-yden 

97 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Memorial  meeting  in  Midstoke.  Thus  she  would  be  able 
to  hear  him  speak. 

"  And  what  about  hearing  me  ?" 

"  Father  says  it's  so  late  in  the  session.  They  are  just 
winding  up  things." 

"  And  you  are  winding  me  up !"  he  said  dolefully. 

"  You  will  go  again — like  a  clock.  And  dear  me ! 
I  was  quite  forgetting  the  time — I  shall  be  late  for  lunch." 

"  And  I  shall  not  eat  any." 

She  laughed  at  the  mock  tragedy  of  his  tone,  and  with 
a  word  of  farewell  galloped  away.  But  she  forgot  to  re- 
turn to  the  head  of  the  path  where,  when  she  met  a  cavalier, 
Wilson  was  wont  to  wait,  half  from  amiability,  half  to 
spare  his  horseflesh.  She  forgot  all  about  Wilson  in  fact, 
nor  was  she  reminded  of  his  existence  when  she  found 
she  had  galloped  unthinkingly  to  the  wrong  side  of  the 
Park  and  must  go  all  the  way  back.  When  she  did  arrive 
on  the  homeward  side,  and  found  herself  in  the  streets, 
her  unattended  condition  came  upon  her  with  a  shock,  and 
she  turned  again  to  find  Wilson.  But  Wilson  was  no- 
where to  be  seen. 

When  she  got  home  at  last,  she  found  her  mother  on  the 
verge  of  hysterics.  Wilson  had,  it  appeared,  galloped  up 
to  find  if  she  had  arrived,  and  then  darted  back  in  search 
of  her.  But  this  was  enough  to  set  Mrs.  Marshmont's 
vivid  imagination  picturing  a  dozen  varieties  of  catastro- 
phe, not  even  limited  to  equestrian.  In  fact  so  clearly 
had  she  seen  Allegra's  brains  bespattering  the  pavement, 
and  her  hair  dabbled  in  blood,  that  it  was  as  much  a  shock 
as  a  relief  to  see  her  come  up,  all  sound  and  glowing. 
Mrs.  Marshmont  felt  angrier  than  if  the  girl  had  arrived 
on  a  stretcher. 

"  Never  any  more,  my  lady !"  she  cried  vaguely,  rushing 
into  the  hallway. 

"  I  am  so  sorry  I'm  late,  mother.  I  lost  Wilson  and 
went  back  for  him." 

"  And  he's  lost  you,  and  gone  back  for  you.  Oh  yes, 

98 


FIZZY  FALLS 

you  can  smile.  It's  a  Comedy  of  Errors  for  you.  But 
it's  King  Lear  for  me.  Such  daughters !  Not  one  cares 
a  pin,  if  I'm  on  the  rack!  And  the  lunch  is  spoiled 
too." 

"  I  don't  mind." 

Mrs.  Marshmont  screamed.  "  What  did  I  say  ?  You 
don't  care  how  I  fare?  Any  bone  is  good  enough  for  a 
dog." 

"  Forgive  me,  mother — I  didn't  know  you  had  waited." 

"  Do  you  suppose  I  am  like  you — without  a  scrap  of 
feeling !  Did  you  think  I  could  eat,  when  you  were  lying 
bathed  in  your  blood  ?" 

"  But  I  wasn't—" 

Mrs.  Marshmont  glared  at  her.  "  No !  You  hadn't 
even  that  excuse  for  torturing  me.  Don't  stand  there 
flicking  your  whip — I  know  you're  itching  to  try  it  on  me. 
If  I  had  been  a  sensible  mother,  /  shouldn't  have  spared 
the  rod." 

Allegra  began  to  be  angry.  Her  bones  held  memory  of 
too  many  a  mauling  at  the  irate  maternal  hands,  whose 
rings  were  especially  unpleasant.  Now  to  be  reproached 
for  not  having  been  chastised !  It  made  the  remembered 
wounds  smart  doubly. 

"  If  I  am  spoiled,"  she  said,  "  it's  because  you  didn't 
spare  the  rod,  not  because  you  did." 

"  That  is  right.  Contradict  Scripture.  What  next, 
I  wonder.  Go  in  and  stop  your  mouth  with  lunch  before 
new  blasphemies  come  out."  She  pushed  her  into  the 
dining-room.  "  You  think  because  you  sneak  and  purr 
around  your  father  and  write  a  few  miserable  letters  for 
him  you  can  say  and  do  what  you  please.  Oh,  and  there's 
a  letter  for  you — came  by  hand.  In  a  gentleman's  hand 
too!" 

The  girls,  who  were  expectant  at  table,  sent  droll 
glances  at  her  as,  under  her  mother's  militant  eye,  she 
opened  the  elegant  envelope  beside  her  plate.  The  carven 
eagles  under  the  sideboard  brought  her  small  consolation 

99 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

in  the  crisis.  Their  uncrushed  heads  seemed  merely 
untrue. 

It  was  only  a  note  from  Fizzy :  "  Dear  Miss  Marshmont, 
I  fear  you  will  now  be  thinking  I  gave  you  Reform  as  a 
bribe — as  the  Cabinet  gives  it  to  the  Radicals — but  please 
dismiss  from  your  mind  all  that  passed  to-day.  I  shall 
always  be  glad  to  think  that  you  accepted  the  horse  if  you 
refused  the  donkey." 

With  a  smile  that  held  back  a  tear,  Allegra  crammed 
this  into  her  pocket  hurriedly.  Sensitiveness  and  shyness 
blending  with  her  resentment,  she  refused  to  soften  her 
mother's  inquisitorial  gaze  by  showing  it  to  her.  Which 
was,  perhaps,  ungrateful.  But  then  none  of  the  Marsh- 
mont girls  realized  what  comparative  freedom  their  in- 
congruous parentage  had  brought  them,  in  a  period  when 
the  English  girl's  life  was  as  cramped  as  the  feminine  foot 
in  China.  Allegra  merely  thought  it  hard  that  while  Dul- 
sie  should  flourish,  undiscovered  and  unreprimanded,  her 
first  and  entirely  legitimate  affair  should  bring  her  under 
suspicion. 


ME.  WILLIAM  FITZWLNTER'S  good-humored  re- 
treat touched  Allegra  more  than  all  his  advances, 
and  to  show  that  she  met  him  in  the  proper  spirit,  she  rode 
out  the  next  day  on  Reform  without,  however,  meeting 
him  at  all.  Such  delicacy  pleased  and  disappointed  her, 
and  she  had  twinges  of  remorse  as  to  whether  she  had 
blighted  a  noble  life.  This  experience  of  hers  made  Dul- 
sie's  debonair  handling  of  affairs  of  the  heart  more  puz- 
zling than  ever.  Dulsie  cheerfully  admitted  that  half  a 
dozen  men  expected  to  marry  her.  "  But  I  can't  keep  all 
my  engagements,"  she  would  say.  Allegra  almost  wish- 
ed she  could  make  as  light  of  Mr.  Fitzwinter's  feelings, 
but  they  pressed  upon  her  conscience,  and  a  few  nights 
before  leaving  for  Midstoke  with  her  father,  she  sought  the 
aid  of  Joan's  conscience.  Although  she  despised  her  young- 
er sister's  judgment  of  high  general  ethics,  on  a  practical 
question  she  respected  her  swift  clairvoyance,  her  preco- 
cious knowledge  of  the  world,  more  than  she  admitted — 
even  to  herself.  Joan  cut  short  the  blushing  confession. 
"  But  I  guessed  he  was  going  to !  The  moment  the  mare 
came !  A  gift-horse  took  Troy." 

"  Then  why  didn't  you  warn  me  ?" 

"  You're  so  top-lofty.  You  would  have  flown  at  me 
for  chaffing  vou." 

"  No,  I  wouldn't." 

"  There  you  are !  Contradicting  me  already.  I 
shall  wear  pale  peach  at  the  wedding,  and  a  bouquet  of 
azaleas." 

101 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  How  you  jump !"  said  Allegra  in  confusion. 

"  You  mean  to  say  I'm  not  going  to  be  a  bridesmaid !" 

"  Not  at  my  wedding." 

"  What !     You'll  have  strangers !" 

"  There  won't  be  any  wedding,"  Allegra  murmured. 

"  You've  refused  him  S"  cried  Joan  sharply. 

Allegra  hung  her  head. 

"  Show  me  that  note  at  once !" 

"  What  note  ?"  asked  Allegra. 

"  The  note  mother  was  dying  to  see  the  other  day — the 
proposal !" 

"  That  wasn't  a  proposal — that  was  an  acceptance." 

Joan  glared.     "  An  acceptance  ?" 

"  An  acceptance  of  my  rejection." 

"  Then  it  is  all  over !" 

Allegra  breathed  a  "  Yes." 

"  You're  a  young  fool !" 

Allegra  recovered  her  haughtiness :  "  You  forget  I  am 
older  than  you." 

"You  old  fool  then!" 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Joan.  How  could  I 
marry  a  man  I  didn't — didn't  care  for  ?" 

"  I  believe  the  ceremonial  is  the  same  as  in  the  other 
case,"  replied  Joan  dryly. 

"  But  he  is  so  old."' 

"  And  so  rich :  and  so  full  of  common-sense.  What's 
your  idea  of  a  husband  ?  One  of  those  young  men  you 
see  in  the  Fops'  Alley  at  the  Opera.  Or  is  it  a  squalling 
foreign  tenor  ?" 

Allegra  flinched  under  Joan's  withering  scorn,  but  re- 
membering she  was  guiltless  of  desiring  either  of  those 
species,  she  recovered  herself.  "  Whatever  my  notion  of 
a  husband  may  be,  Mr.  Fitzwinter  does  not  fulfil  it." 

Joan  sniffed.     "  I  see !  you  want  a  love-match." 

"And  don't  you?" 

"  I  ?  No,  indeed !  Not  after  seeing  mother  and  father. 
That  was  a  love-match." 

102 


FAMILY  LIFE 

Allegra  was  staggered,  but  again  she  found  her  feet. 
"  But  it  might  be  a  thousandfold  worse,  if  one  began  with- 
out love." 

"  If  one  began  without  love,  one  might  end  with  it. 
Anyhow,  I  don't  see  how  it  could  be  any  worse." 

"  It  couldn't  be  much  worse,"  admitted  Allegra.  "  But 
all  the  same,  mother's  in  love  with  father  even  now." 

"  Whom  she  loveth  she  chastiseth !"  Joan  retorted  ir- 
reverently. 

Allegra's  young  brow  wrinkled  itself.  "  It  seems  to 
me  the  best  thing  is  not  to  marry  at  all,"  she  concluded. 

"  And  the  next  best  thing  is  to  marry,"  added  Joan 
imperturbably  "  I  shall  wear  white  satin  at  the  wedding 
and  a  bouquet  of  orange  blossoms." 

"  At  what  wedding,  Joan  ?" 

"  At  Mr.  Fitzwinter's." 

"  Oh  Joan !    What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  I  mean  I  shall  marry  Mr.  Fitzwinter  myself.  Don't 
look  so  jealous.  I  return  him  you,  if  you  say  the  word." 

"  You're  joking." 

"  Marriage  is  no  joke,"  said  Joan  sternly.  "  Mr.  Fitz- 
winter wants  a  wife,  a  wife  must  be  found  for  him.  Shall 
the  Marshmont  family  lose  such  a  valuable  accession? 
Think  of  the  good  one  can  do  with  Mr.  Fitzwinter's  money, 
yes  and  with  his  newspaper  too.  Think  how  pleased 
father  will  be — how  it  will  knit  together  the  Radical 
party." 

Somehow  Allegra's  cheeks  had  grown  quite  white.  She 
was  more  unnerved  at  Joan's  proposal  than  at  Mr.  Fitz- 
winter's. What  that  plump  little  schoolgirl  was  saying 
sounded  blasphemous — a  spiritual  profanation.  But  a 
solacing  thought  came  to  her. 

"  But  he's  not  in  love  with  you !"  she  cried. 

"  Well,"  retorted  Joan,  "  I'm  not  in  love  with  him." 
And  she  tossed  her  square  chin,  as  if  to  dismiss  the  subject, 
and  made  staccato  stitches  at  the  night-cap  she  was  finish- 
ing for  Tom's  use  in  Novabarba.  The  young  cornet's  de- 

103 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

parture — which  would  precede  the  Midstoke  expedition 
by  a  day — was  throwing  Allegra's  into  the  shade,  or  rather 
postponing  Mrs.  Marshmont's  agitation  over  it.  As  her 
mind  only  realized  one  thing  at  a  time,  she  never  econo- 
mized her  emotions  by  taking  her  troubles  in  the  lump. 
She  went  out  to  meet  each  misfortune  half-way,  receiving 
it  as  with  an  emotional  etiquette :  and  the  fevers  and  more 
or  less  mortal  wounds  that  awaited  Tom  would  be  duly 
succeeded  by  the  railway  accidents  on  the  London  and 
Midstoke  line.  Her  husband,  strengthened  by  her  weak- 
ness, refused  to  let  her  see  Tom  off,  but  he  went  down  to 
the  dock  himself,  taking  only  Jim,  who  was  now  up  from 
Harrow  for  the  holidays.  He  returned  doubly  sad,  with  a 
confused  impression  of  martial  music,  waving  helmets 
and  handkerchiefs,  weeping  wives,  and  a  huge  roaring 
mob  swaying  deliriously  with  patriotic  frenzy,  as  if, 
though  the  nation  was  at  peace,  some  brute  instinct  joyous- 
ly scented  war.  He  had  never  before  been  brought  into 
such  personal  contact  with  the  army,  and  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  the  People  impressed  him,  not  as  a  mild,  heavy- 
eyed,  half-starved  ox,  stupidly  bearing  the  intolerable 
yoke  of  the  classes,  but  as  a  wild  carnivorous  beast,  lust- 
ing for  blood.  The  one  touch  of  pleasure  the  scene 
brought  him  was  Jim's  unexpected  comment :  "  Canni- 
bals beating  the  tom-tom !" 

The  supercilious  young  gentleman,  with  his  spruce 
jacket,  shining  white  collar,  and  glossy  high  hat,  towards 
whom  he  had  been  feeling  curiously  unsympathetic,  seem- 
ed suddenly  a  representative  of  civilization,  and  his  son. 
On  the  way  home  he  tried  to  dig  into  this  new  unknown 
mind,  hoping  for  Allegra-like  treasure.  But  to  his  simple 
spade  it  seemed  full  of  baffling  windings.  Jim  appeared 
almost  a  changeling,  without  the  family  beauty  or  the 
family  tallness;  delicate  in  health,  yet  coarse  in  feature, 
and  with  a  nose  turned  up  as  in  permanent  disapproval. 
At  Harrow  he  sneered  at  his  contemporaries  and  worked 
his  fags  like  a  slave-driver,  yet  he  had  something  of  his 

104 


FAMILY  LIFE 

mother's  fascination, for  he  was  never  without  a  following. 
His  only  physical  prowess  was  with  the  foils,  but  this 
sufficed  to  redeem  him  socially  from  his  triumphs  in  Latin 
verse.  Perhaps,  too,  the  tradition  of  Tom  was  in  his  favor 
— the  golden  legend  of  long- jumping  and  swift  bowling. 

During  the  absence  of  the  males  the  Marshmont  house- 
hold rocked  with  a  feminine  storm.  It  arose  from  Mrs. 
Marshmont's  unexpected  invention  of  a  new  grievance — 
that  no  plans  had  been  made  for  the  autumn. 

"  Of  course  I  couldn't  think  of  anything  before  Tom 
was  gone,"  she  declared  with  tearful  truth.  "  But  now 
that  we  ought  to  be  escaping  from  this  brick  and  mortar 
oven,  your  father  has  not  arranged  a  thing.  He  would 
go  and  let  Hazelhurst  for  the  year  against  all  my  advice 
and  protestations,  and  now  we  have  not  a  resting-place 
for  the  sole  of  our  foot.  Why,  we  must  be  the  only  peo- 
ple in  London.  And  now  he's  off  to  Midstoke,  leaving  us 
like  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abednego." 

"  It's  worse  at  Midstoke,"  laughed  Mabel  incautiously. 
"  Think  of  all  those  blast-furnaces." 

"  Of  course :  you  all  take  his  part."  From  such  small 
beginnings  Mrs.  Marshmont  mounted  till  she  reached  her 
bedroom,  threatening  suicide.  Allegra  flew  after  her  in 
alarm,  but  the  door  was  locked  in  her  face.  She  ran 
down,  her  heart  palpitating  wildly,  and  implored  Joan 
to  return  with  her  and  stave  off  tragedy. 

"  Go  down  and  get  Gwenny,"  Joan  said  coolly : 
"  Gwenny  has  more  influence  than  I." 

"  No,  no,"  Allegra  panted.  "  Gwenny  cowers  before 
her.  You  don't." 

"  You're  all  fools.  Not  one  of  vou  knows  how  to  take 
her." 

Joan  walked  up  the  stairs,  softly  reciting: 

"  And  bouncing,  and  flouncing,  and  trouncing, 
And  squalling,  and  bawling,  and  mauling, 
That's  how  the  mother  goes  up  to  her  door." 

105 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

She  tapped  at  it  gently.  "  Mother,  dear,  can  I  help  you 
to  pack  father's  box  ?" 

"  Yes,  Joan." 

They  heard  a  portmanteau  being  dragged  from  the 
dressing-room.  Joan  pinched  Allegra.  "  But  the  handle 
is  stuck,"  she  said. 

The  key  grated,  and  Mrs.  Marshmont,  holding  a  coat, 
appeared  at  the  open  door.  The  rat  was  perched  on  her 
shoulder. 

"  I  shouldn't  think  he'd  want  that  blue  one,  mother," 
Joan  said  instantly. 

An  elaborate  discussion  ensued,  in  which  Allegra  bore 
her  share  very  seriously,  as  being  the  fellow-pilgrim.  She 
found  it  quite  interesting  to  think  out  how  many  neck-ties 
a  man  needed  in  three  days,  and  was  very  proud  to  find 
herself  the  only  one  who  remembered  the  throat-medicine. 
When  the  head  of  the  house  got  home,  he  found  no  marks 
of  its  having  rocked.  His  wife  was  indeed  far  calmer  than 
he  had  expected,  so  soon  after  Tom's  departure  and  so  soon 
before  his  own.  He  was  delighted  to  find  she  had  packed 
his  luggage,  and  was  now  helping  even  Allegra  to  pack  hers. 

"  We  must  be  thinking  of  a  holiday,  dear,  as  soon  as  I 
get  back,"  he  said,  smoothing  her  soft  face. 

"  It  will  be  sufficient  holiday  to  see  something  of  you, 
fy  nghariad  (my  love),"  she  cooed  back. 

"  Yes,  but  we  must  bring  the  roses  again  to  my  darling's 
cheek.  She  has  had  so  much  to  bear.  I  wish  now  we  had 
not  let  Hazelhurst." 

"  But  you  wanted  the  money,  sweetest." 

"  Yes,  towards — "  He  broke  off,  not  desiring  to  recall 
"  Tom's  commission."  "  But  I  expect  we  shall  manage 
to  get  quarters  at  a  farm-house." 

"  A  farm-house !"  she  panted.  "  With  two  of  your  sis- 
ters' places  standing  empty.  I  looked  it  up  in  Debrett. 
There's  Rosmere  and — " 

He  interrupted  her  smilingly.  "  But,  Mary,  we  can't 
go  a-begging  of  my  sister." 

106 


FAMILY   LIFE 

"  My  sisters  are  not  backward  in  begging  of  me !" 

Of  this  her  husband  had  become  gradually  aware  more 
in  admiration  than  in  anger,  though  he  was  still  ignorant 
that  herds  of  minor  Welsh  relatives  hovered  about  the 
tradesmen's  door,  and  were  occasionally  harbored  cautious- 
ly for  weeks  in  the  nether  regions,  like  people  on  whose 
head  a  price  was  set,  rather  than  people  who  cost  so  much 
a  head. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  soothingly.  "  But  I've  never 
spoken  to  Emma  for  years.  The  places  are  not  even  hers 
— but  the  Duke's.  And  the  Duke  I've  never  spoken  to 
at  all.  No  more  have  I  to  the  Duchess  for  the  matter  of 
that,"  he  added,  smiling. 

"  Well,  it's  a  shame  she  should  have  three  country 
houses,  and  we  none  at  all." 

"  It's  a  shame  we  should  have  five  servants,  mother,  and 
many  people  none  at  all,"  Allegra  put  in. 

Mrs.  Marshmont  kindled.  "  We  haven't  got  five  ser- 
vants." 

"  Yes,  reckoning  Wilson." 

"  And  if  we  have,  I'm  sure  I  work  as  hard  as  the  five 
put  together,  while  you  are  jingling  on  the  piano." 

"  It's  a  question  of  society,  not  of  the  individual." 

"  Hush,  hush,  Allegra,"  her  father  interposed.  "  I'm 
afraid  you're  getting  infected  with  some  of  that  Conti- 
nental socialism." 

"  She  is  always  hankering  after  the  Continent,"  Mrs. 
Marshmont  added  resentfully. 

"  No,  father,  I  know  very  little  about  Continental  so- 
cialism. But  I  see  for  myself  how  badly  things  are  ar- 
ranged." 

"  I  wish  you  saw  how  badly  your  things  are  arranged," 
Joan  intervened  contemptuously.  "  You'll  simply  ruin 
that  frock."  And  she  extracted  it  from  Allegra's  box  and 
refolded  it. 

"  Without  free  competition,  Allegra,"  said  her  father 
mildly,  "  the  world  would  come  to  a  standstill.  The  in- 

107 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

dividual  must  fight,  but  fight  fair,  and  be  fairly  re- 
warded." 

Allegra  received  the  dictum  with  respect,  but  with  a 
growing  suspicion  that  her  father's  sweet  reasonableness 
was  too  tame  for  the  monstrous  miseries  that  obsessed  her 
imagination.  She  sometimes  yearned  even  for  Fitzwin- 
ter's  poisoned  rapier.  If  she  could  only  have  felt  in  him 
a  touch  of  the  prophet. 

The  next  morning  at  breakfast — even  while  the  car- 
riage waited  outside  to  carry  Allegra  and  her  father  to 
the  station — the  Minister  announced,  looking  up  from 
a  letter,  that  Mr.  Fitzwinter  had  invited  the  family  to 
his  Devonshire  country  house.  The  table  buzzed  with 
surprise  and  pleasure,  and  Joan's  foot  pressed  Alle- 
gra's. 

"  I  don't  see  how  we  can  all  go,"  said  Allegra,  coloring. 

"  You  selfish  chit,"  cried  Mrs.  Marshmont.  "  Do  you 
think  because  he  gave  you  a  horse,  he  doesn't  want  to  see 
anybody  else  ?" 

"  I  shall  be  delighted  to  see  more  of  Mr.  Fitzwinter," 
said  Joan,  treading  more  heavily  on  Allegra's  foot. 

"  But  you  can't  see  anything  of  Mr.  Fitzwinter,"  said 
her  father.  "  He  is  going  off  to  Novabarba  for  the  shoot- 
ing, he  says.  He  puts  the  house  at  our  disposal." 

Allegra  shot  a  mischievous  glance  at  Joan.  "  Oh,  in 
that  case — 

"  But  what  shooting  will  he  get  in  Novabarba  ?"  asked 
Mabel. 

"  There  are  sure  to  be  wild  animals,"  said  Jim. 

"  My  belief  is  he  means  the  wild  animals  who  are  go- 
ing to  shoot  one  another,"  cried  Mrs.  Marshmont  shrewd- 
ly. "  He  is  going  off  to  see  the  fun  as  he  calls  it,  but  what 
is  fun  to  him  is  death  to  me." 

"  Health  to  you,  you  mean,  mother,"  hastily  intervened 
Joan.  "  You  forget  we're  to  have  that  beautiful  Manor 
House :  I  read  about  it  once — there  are  the  most  wonderful 
domed  conservatories  stretching  out  on  a  cliff.  I  could 

108 


FAMILY   LIFE 

live  there  for  ever."  And  her  eye  sought  Allegra's 
roguishly. 

"  But  I  hope  it's  not  too  lonely,"  said  Dulsie.  "  One 
doesn't  want  to  be  buried  in  a  conservatory  on  a  cliff." 

"  The  horizon  is  not  clouded  with  majors,"  replied 
Mabel,  "  but  a  man  who  stayed  there  last  Christmas  told 
me  there  are  quite  old  families  within  a  five-mile  radius, 
and  naval  and  military  men  come  up  from  Plymouth  for 
the  cotillons." 

"  It  is  indeed  most  kind  of  Mr.  Fitzwinter,"  said  Mrs. 
Marshmont,  "  and  I  hope,  Thomas,  you  will  express  as 
much  in  your  letter." 

"  I  shall  attend  to  it  as  soon  as  we  are  settled  in  our 
hotel,"  he  assured  her;  whereupon  Allegra,  bethinking 
herself  that  it  would  be  written  in  a  "  pretty  feminine 
hand,"  blushed  with  apparent  irrelevance. 

"  And  how  long  shall  you  be  away  ?"  asked  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont, who  had  known  for  ever  so  long  that  her  husband 
was  reducing  the  expedition  to  a  minimum — one  day  to 
go,  one  day  to  speak,  and  one  day  to  return. 

"  Three  days,"  he  replied  patiently. 

"  'Tis  twenty  years  till  then,"  she  quoted — a  matronly 
Juliet. 

"  Then  why  not  go  down  to  Devonshire — I'll  come 
straight  to  The  Manor  House!" 

"  Oh  no,  there  wouldn't  be  time  to  pack  and — 

"  Not  in  twenty  years,  mother  ?"  Joan  asked. 

Mrs.  Marshmont  stared  at  her.  "  Twenty  years  ?  Are 
you  out  of  your  senses,  Joan  ?" 

"  No,  mother,  only  in  my  sixth  sense — the  sense  of 
humor." 

The  Minister  created  a  diversion  by  farewell  embraces. 
"  Don't  tease  the  bullfinch,  Dulsie,"  was  his  final  cry,  as 
Wilson  with  a  cluck  jerked  off  the  horses. 


CHAPTER   XI 
MIDSTOKE 

MIDSTOKE  was  a  vertebra  of  the  backbone  of  Brit- 
ain, a  humming  hive  of  money-making,  and,  as  in 
celebration  of  its  prosperity,  what  seemed  a  perpetual 
jubilation  of  fireworks  rose  over  the  low  stone  houses  of 
the  town  proper.  But  it  was  only  the  blazing  jets  from 
the  furnaces — bonfires  proclaiming  the  glad  tidings  of 
the  conversion  of  iron  into  steel  and  of  steel  into  gold. 

To  feed  these  unsleeping  fires,  a  section  of  Midstoke 
woke  when  the  world  lay  snuggled  under  the  blanket  of 
darkness,  and  went  shivering  and  yawning  through  the 
narrow,  dim-lit,  but  spasmodically  ruddied  streets  under 
the  keen  stars.  And  besides  these  sleepless  iron-works  with 
their  double  shifts,  Midstoke  pulsated  with  factories, 
wherein,  from  dawn  to  dusk,  coarse- jowled  men  and  un- 
shapely women  and  shuffle-footed  girls  tended  the  iron 
monsters  whose  slaves  they  had  become,  and  which  dragged 
them  down  as  in  envy  of  their  humanity  to  the  same  end- 
less monotony  of  blind  recurrent  movement ;  avenging  an 
instant's  disrespect  by  beating  out  their  brains  with  steel 
rods  or  grinding  their  bones  between  toothed  wheels. 

Allegra  had  been  looking  forward  to  these  Moloch  fires 
and  Juggernaut  wheels  as  to  an  emotional  orgie,  for  her 
father  had  promised  her  the  spectacle.  But  an  emotional 
orgie  of  another  sort  awaited  her. 

Marshmont  had  refused  private  invitations  in  favor  of 
real  privacy  at  an  hotel.  His  long  years  of  platform  tour- 
ing had  familiarized  him  with  the  hardships  of  local  hos- 
pitality— the  general  atmosphere  of  amiable  ladies  with 

110 


MIDSTOKE 

birthday-books  and  confession-albums ;  the  "  few  friends 
at  dinner "  turned  into  a  lion-exhibition  by  the  proud 
host;  the  slippered  chat  after  supper  frustrated  by  in- 
cursions of  near  neighbors  and  distant  relatives:  never  a 
moment  in  which  to  possess  one's  soul  or  indeed  excogi- 
tate one's  speech.  Against  these  drawbacks  was  to  be  set 
the  acquisition  of  local  knowledge  and  useful  commercial 
data,  or  rather  the  possibility  of  sifting  some  grains  of 
fact  from  a  medley  of  prejudiced  gossip.  Sometimes  he 
fluctuated  in  favor  of  particular  hosts,  but  in  this  instance 
his  decision  in  favor  of  hotel  bills  was  really  part  of  the 
tribute  he  was  come  to  pay  Bryden.  It  was  Bryden  whose 
guest  he  had  always  been  at  Midstoke.  Bryden's  bachelor 
freedom  had  permitted  of  glorious  hours  of  dreaming  and 
scheming  a  regenerated  England,  and  any  lesser  host 
would  profane  so  dear  a  memory. 

But  the  Minister  had  reckoned  without  his  real  host — 
the  town  of  Midstoke.  Midstoke  was  very  proud  of  Bry- 
den, and  of  its  position  as  the  metropolis  of  Radicalism. 
It  was  a  self-made  town,  whose  factory  chimneys  had  an 
instinctive  opposition  to  ivy-mantled  towers,  and  it  was 
the  only  town  in  England  that  returned  no  representative 
of  medievalism.  Marshmont  himself  had  to  divide  his 
constituency  with  a  sporting  Tory  squire.  But  in  Mid- 
stoke revolutionary  thought  flamed  and  hissed  like  the 
blast-furnaces,  and  there  were  voices  daring  to  say  that 
even  the  puddlers  who  tended  them  should  have  their  vote 
just  as  well  as  the  folks  in  the  fifteen-pound  houses.  It 
was  the  era  of  Franchise  Bills,  of  Ministers  outdoing  one 
another  in  lowering  the  franchise,  like  competitive  sales- 
men, of  Cabinets  upsetting  on  a  question  of  five  pounds ; 
of  parliamentary  jeremiads  on  the  Deluge  that  would  fol- 
low the  removal  of  another  pound  from  the  political  dam. 
Midstoke  cried  in  the  wilderness  for  universal  suffrage — 
that  the  wilderness  might  blossom  as  the  rose. 

Since  his  elevation  to  the  Cabinet,  Marshmont  had  not 
set  foot  in  Midstoke.  Midstoke  had  therefore  still  to 

111 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

celebrate  his  triumph,  and  the  fact  that  he  was  come  to 
praise  its  own  dead  Caesar  added  glow  to  its  welcome. 

The  travellers  found  a  motley  deputation,  headed  by  the 
Mayor  and  one  of  the  Members  and  tailed  by  small  boys, 
excitedly  thronging  the  platform.  A  brass  band  struck  up 
"  See  the  Conquering  Hero  Comes."  Marshmont  looked 
miserable,  Allegra  tearfully  happy,  and  the  unexpected 
sight  of  this  pretty  creature  kindled  the  enthusiasm  to  a 
white  heat,  sufficient  to  melt  a  heart  of  pig-iron. 

"  God  bless  your  gowden  locks,"  cried  a  head-shawled 
factory-girl,  and  there  was  an  inarticulate  roar  of  ap- 
proval, and  a  red-faced  young  man,  with  an  air  of  Master 
of  the  Ceremonies,  called  out  "  Three  cheers  for  the  young 
lady,"  and  they  were  given,  while  Allegra,  suddenly 
translated  to  a  public  personage,  looked  as  shame- 
faced as  her  father.  An  open  carriage,  too,  had  been  pro- 
vided, and  when,  escorted  and  embarrassed  by  a  mob,  they 
had  ploughed  their  way  through  the  station,  Allegra  be- 
came aware  that  a  blacker  and  grimier  mob  was  heaving 
outside,  brightened  by  flags  and  banners.  She  took  her 
seat  by  her  father's  side,  the  Mayor  and  the  Member  facing 
them,  and  through  a  haze  of  tears  she  saw  the  great 
swarthy  town  and  its  swarms  of  sunless  faces.  And  then 
the  same  young  man  had  a  further  inspiration.  He  start- 
ed to  unhitch  the  carriage,  and  presently  the  triumphal 
car  was  being  drawn  along  by  what  Allegra  afterwards 
described  as  "  huzzahing  horses !"  The  crowd,  the  cheers, 
as  enkindling  and  uplifting  as  the  spurts  of  flame  over 
the  houses,  thrilled  Allegra  with  a  strange  new  sense  of 
her  father's  greatness  and  the  greatness  of  his  cause. 
Here  he  was  the  royal  lion.  At  home  she  saw  him  tame 
as  her  mother's  rat.  In  the  London  streets  he  was  un- 
recognized or  taken  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  these 
swelling  throats,  too,  gave  body  to  the  dreams  he  dreamed, 
transmuted  them  from  words  to  living  realities.  These 
great-hearted,  rough-handed  toilers  who  loved  him  so—- 
for them  one  could  live  and  die. 

112 


MIDSTOKE 

And  her  anger  mounted  suddenly  against  her  mother — 
shooting  up  like  those  fiery  jets — against  the  woman  who 
made  herself  the  centre  of  a  household  which  held  this 
man  of  men:  who  sacrificed  and  tortured,  where  she 
should  have  soothed  and  worshipped:  who,  immersed  in 
her  petty  domesticities,  heard  not  the  flutter  of  angelic 
wings,  was  blind  to  the  beauty  at  which  the  ages  would 
wonder.  Unconsciously  her  own  hand  sought  her  father's 
and  sent  her  warm  love  through  its  loving  warmth. 

Her  first  contact  with  the  crowd  was  as  vitally  instruc- 
tive to  Allegra  as  her  father's  experience  of  the  mob  at  the 
dock  had  been  to  him  the  day  before.  For  him,  indeed, 
that  lesson  was  already  being  obscured  by  this,  his  more 
familiar  conception  of  the  People:  the  vision  of  the  wild 
beast  receded  to  a  nightmare  shadowiness,  and  his  old 
image  of  the  overladen  ox  returned,  the  ox,  heavy-eyed  but 
lowing  at  sight  of  Christ  in  the  manger. 

Allegra's  anxiety  for  her  other  emotional  orgie  was  only 
whetted  by  this.  She  dragged  her  father  that  same  after- 
noon through  the  whirring  mills  with  their  marvellously 
dovetailed  machines,  ingenious  to  the  verge  of  humor  in 
their  automatic  adjustments,  and  midnight  found  her 
within  the  dusky  glare  of  the  iron  Inferno,  dazed  by  the 
thwack  of  steam-hammers,  the  gride  of  giant  shears,  the 
clangor  of  rollers,  and  picking  her  way  gingerly  amid 
blasts  of  burning  air.  At  first  it  was  very  terrifying  to 
dodge  long  beams  of  white-hot  iron  shooting  past  her  on 
tiny  trucks,  and  fierce  glowing  knobs  in  the  grip  of  huge 
tongs,  or  to  steer  amid  yawning,  roaring  caverns  of  flame 
of  a  temperature  so  transcendental  as  to  seem  subtilized 
into  spirituality,  and  she  had  an  impulse  to  let  them  suck 
her  in,  which  reminded  her  of  the  moths.  But  she  was 
astonished  to  find  how  soon  she  had  accommodated  herself 
to  the  situation,  with  what  coolness  she  followed  her  guides 
over  the  hot  sand  through  the  hissing  maze  of  colossal 
brick  cones,  tended  by  red  demons  perpetually  poking, 
with  what  a  sense  of  home  she  returned  to  the  furnace 

113 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

at  which  she  had  first  watched  the  blast  of  air  whiten  the 
melting  metal  to  unimaginable  ardency.  She  wonder- 
ed if  it  would  be  so  in  the  literal  Inferno,  and  from  the 
tear-misted  remotenesses  of  the  past  came  up  the  memory 
of  a  childish  conversation  on  the  topic  with  Gwenny,  to 
whom  she  had  once  pointed  out  (after  getting  half  scald- 
ed in  a  bath  into  which  she  had  jumped  prematurely) 
that  nothing  hurt  very  much  after  the  first  few  seconds. 
"  The  Omnipotent  has  specially  arranged  that  the  agony 
shall  endure,"  Gwenny  had  replied  reassuringly,  "  even 
as  the  soul  shall  burn  everlastingly,  yet  never  be  consumed. 
It  is  like  the  agony  of  thirst,  which  grows  not  less  but 
more  as  time  goes  on.  The  lost  shall  thirst  for  a  cup  of 
cold  water  through  all  eternity." 

When  Allegra  at  last  went  to  bed  in  the  small  hours  and 
in  the  strange  hotel  bed,  she  was  long  in  falling  asleep, 
but  when  the  silent  beauty  of  the  scarlet  dawn  stole  over 
the  belching  town,  her  aching  eyes  closed,  and  she  dream- 
ed of  Gwenny  sweeping  the  chimneys  of  hell  with  a  great 
black  fire-brush,  surrounded  by  small  demons  shouting 
"  God  bless  your  gowden  locks." 

But  there  is  no  rest  for  the  wicked,  or  those  who  meddle 
in  politics,  and  Allegra  must  wake  to  the  wilder  frenzy 
of  the  First  Bryden  Anniversary.  Her  father  was  to  un- 
veil the  bust  and  make  a  great  speech  in  the  afternoon, 
for  so  high  did  the  fever  mount  that  Midstoke  had  given 
itself  a  half-holiday,  and  everything  closed,  except  the  fur- 
naces, which  bore  out  Gwenny's  ideas  to  the  last  spark. 

The  brief  hours  before  lunch  were  devoted  to  the  Minis- 
ter's correspondence,  swollen  by  fatuities  and  futilities, 
applications  for  alms,  Government  berths,  nominations 
to  the  Bluecoat  School  in  London.  But  at  last  Allegra 
found  herself  seated  on  a  platform  amid  politicians  and 
potted  palms,  in  an  environment  of  wall  placards  that 
recalled  Gwenny's  texts,  and  of  hysteria  that  recalled  her 
religious  excitement.  The  girl  had  never  before  been 
at  a  political  meeting  and  it  seemed  to  her  to  supply  the 

114 


MIDSTOKE 

something  she  had  always  missed  in  the  frigid  services 
of  the  Church  of  England.  Perhaps  this  passion  for 
human  progress  which  seethed  around  her  was  religion — 
the  religion  of  the  future. 

Even  the  frock-coated  saints  of  progress  in  the  stained- 
glass  windows  of  this  new  Town  Hall,  held  something  of 
sublimity,  ridiculous  though  they  were  at  first  sight.  And 
there  was  the  sublime  without  the  ridiculous,  she  knew, 
in  the  fine  bust  of  Bryden,  which  stood  on  the  platform 
swathed  in  its  unlovely  drab  cloth.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
type  of  the  beautiful  spiritual  things  that  lay  swaddled 
about  by  this  uncouth  Midstoke. 

The  fervor  of  the  opening  simmered  down  under  the 
tedious  formalities  and  meandering  speeches  that  pre- 
ceded Marshmont's  address.  The  Radical  Member  who  was 
in  the  chair — the  other  Radical  Member  had  stayed  away 
out  of  jealousy,  because  both  of  them  could  not  sit  in  it 
unless  one  sat  in  the  other's  lap — was  not  so  very  tire- 
some in  his  own  remarks  on  the  perfectibility  of  humanity, 
but  he  edited  the/  meeting  rather  worse  than  most  meet- 
ings are  edited.  After  announcing  a  rigid  ten-minutes' 
rule,  he  made  an  exception  to  it  in  favor  of  every  speaker 
but  the  liveliest,  who  being  merely  bookkeeper  at  the  oil- 
cloth works,  might  be  cut  short  without  ceremony.  But 
all  this  made  Marshmont  shine  by  reflected  dulness,  and 
when  he  at  last  arose,  the  audience  seemed  to  forget  it  had 
already  at  his  entry  sung  "  For  he's  a  jolly  good  fellow  " 
twice  through. 

The  ripe  sun  streamed  through  the  colored  frock-coat- 
ed saints  and  the  hall  was  very  hot,  yet  the  perspiring 
folk  that  packed  both  floor  and  gallery  and  overflowed  in- 
definitely adown  the  street,  never  seemed  to  tire  of  shout- 
ing and  waving  hats  and  handkerchiefs.  The  Minister 
stood  bowing  at  regular  intervals  like  a  wound-up  toy, 
and  Allegra  wondered  when  he  would  be  allowed  to  speak, 
and  how  any  man  could  speak  up  to  that  standard  of  emo- 
tion. She  felt  like  a  mass  of  stripped  nerves,  suffering 

115 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

yet  exultant,  morbidly  apprehensive  of  his  break-down, 
yet  simultaneously  sure  of  his  triumph.  She  saw  he  had 
put  his  few  notes  into  his  hat  and  she  hoped  he  would  not 
forget  where  they  were,  as,  she  had  discovered,  was  his 
habit  of  mind  at  home. 

She  scarcely  realized  how  stale  to  him  was  all  this  pre- 
liminary pother;  to  what  storms  of  approving  thunder  or 
sibilant  lightning  he  had  opposed  the  same  pained  fore- 
head ;  how  all  this  was  but  the  mere  rolling  wave  on  which 
to  launch  the  boat  the  instant  it  receded. 

And  yet  there  was  neither  professional  calm  nor  pro- 
fessional tremor  in  his  tones,  as  he  began  to  speak  of  the 
solemn  occasion  that  had  brought  them  together.  It  was 
evident  that  he  was  shaken,  if  not  by  their  emotion,  by 
his  own.  Early  in  his  speech  he  undraped  great  Csesar's 
bust — not  undramatically — and  there  was  a  hush  of  awe, 
a  reverential  upstanding,  followed  by  a  round  of  cheers. 
And  over  the  rest  of  his  speech  that  beautiful  stone  head 
threw  the  majestic  simplicity  of  its  marble  silence.  He 
spoke  of  how  the  heart  of  him,  whose  noble  features  nobly 
sculptured  were  now  a  Midstoke  monument  for  all  time, 
had  ever  thrilled  to  "  the  still,  sad  music  of  humanity," 
and  Allegra  lost  the  sense  of  his  next  sentences  through 
groping  after  a  dreamlike  reminiscence,  which  finally 
turned  out  to  be  a  dream,  indeed:  none  other  than  her 
vision  of  the  stone  statue  with  the  heart  of  flesh  in  the 
ruined  palace  amid  the  desert  of  sand.  Her  thoughts 
wandered  away  to  the  burnt  poem  that  she  had  based  upon 
it.  But  her  father  startled  her  back  into  attention. 

"  I  loved  this  man,"  he  cried  with  sudden  ringing  pas- 
sion, and  threw  his  arm  around  the  bust.  "  Why  should 
I  be  ashamed  to  speak  of  my  love?  O  Jonathan,  my 
brother,  how  are  the  mighty  fallen,  and  the  weapons  of 
war  perished!"  And  at  this  strange  heart-cry,  this  visi- 
ble contrast  of  the  dead  stone  and  the  living  man,  the 
Hall  seemed  to  rock  as  with  an  earthquake,  and  people 
sprang  on  chairs  and  shouted  and  Allegra  felt  herself 

116 


MIDSTOKE 

swept  upward  to  her  feet,  too,  by  the  mighty  wave  of  ex- 
altation, and  she  was  crying  and  laughing  and  watching 
the  big  tears  roll  down  the  orator's  face.  She  wished  to 
wipe  them  away,  and  yet  she  wished  them  to  be  there. 
He,  all  unconscious  of  them,  put  out  a  deprecating  hand, 
which  like  a  mesmerist's  waved  the  mob  down  to  their 
seats  and  their  silence.  And  now  the  speech  grew  soberer, 
more  in  his  wonted  manner,  returning  to  earthen  facts 
and  iron  laws.  He  sketched  out  the  programme  of  the 
future,  the  lines  on  which  all  good  men  and  true  should 
work — not  Radicals  only,  there  were  good  men  and  true 
in  all  parties ;  let  them  not  imitate  the  follies  of  the  past 
by  ticketing  men  off  into  camps ;  he  was  not  even  sure  that 
the  working-classes  needed  special  representatives  in  Par- 
liament. At  this  point  Allegra  was  sensible  of  a  slight 
loss  of  temperature  in  his  audience,  and  what  made  her 
feel  it  more  morbidly  in  them  was  that  she  felt  it  in  her- 
self. But  he  regained  his  hold  as  he  spoke  of  Novabarba, 
of  this  eternal  red-herring  of  foreign  complications 
dragged  across  the  path  of  domestic  reform:  of  this 
"  spirited  foreign  policy "  which  was  usually  only  the 
cover  for  a  spiritless  snuffling  out  of  all  Governmental 
promises.  And  at  this  almost  open  attack  on  the  Cabinet 
of  which  he  was  part,  the  Hall  grew  frenzied  again,  flat- 
tered to  be  the  scene  of  a  declaration  so  sensational,  so 
palpably  destined  to  be  telegraphed  far  and  wide,  and  to 
be  the  nucleus  of  articles  innumerable.  As  the  speaker 
passed  to  his  peroration,  he  rose  again  to  the  lyric  heights 
of  his  exordium,  threw  off  from  his  wings  the  clog  of  facts 
and  figures,  kindling  to  the  inspiration  of  the  great 
orator  he  celebrated. 

He  limned  in  a  few  strokes  the  world  that  Bryden  had 
prophesied — every  man  with  a  voice  in  the  ruling  of  the 
realm,  the  peerage  shrivelling  away  before  the  aristocracy 
of  simple  manhood,  the  corrupt  corse  of  feudalism  buried 
fathoms  deep,  to  "  suffer  a  sea  change  into  something  rich 
and  strange  " :  the  Empire  limited  to  its  natural  racial 

117 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

expansion,  the  wen  of  India  amputated,  with  all  else 
through  which  the  life-blood  of  the  British  Constitution 
did  not  circulate:  war-ships  replaced  by  merchantmen, 
the  glory  of  war  by  the  service  of  humanity,  its  cost  ex- 
pended on  the  education  of  the  people,  the  spider  spin- 
ning his  web  across  the  cannon's  mouth;  a  world  of  free 
peoples  freely  exchanging  their  products,  material  and 
spiritual,  obscuring  their  frontiers  by  friendly  fusion, 
casting  out  their  fear  by  love.  And  they  should  beat  their 
swords  into  ploughshares  and  their  spears  into  pruning- 
hooks:  nation  should  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation, 
neither  should  they  learn  war  any  more.  His  voice  had 
a  dying  fall,  and  left  a  religious  hush  behind  it,  so  that 
even  when  the  great  orator  resumed  his  seat  the  tense  si- 
lence still  held  for  an  instant,  nor  was  it  really  dispossess- 
ed by  the  inevitable  punctuation  of  applause. 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  ladies  and  gentlemen, — Like  the  snore 
of  the  fat  boy  in  Pickwick — "  Allegra  felt  a  jar  through 
every  fibre.  Who  was  this  tall,  red-faced  young  man, 
sprung  so  unexpectedly  upon  the  palpitant  scene,  and 
plunging  on  his  brazen  way  with  such  cocksure  com- 
placency? The  fat  boy  in  Pickwick  always  fell  asleep; 
so  did  the  Government  unless  perpetually  prodded.  Their 
great  representative,  Bryden,  had  been  denounced  as  a 
Quaker :  Cabinets  had  found  him  a  Shaker.  Mr.  Marsh- 
mont  had  spoken  of  the  red-herring  of  Novabarba — he 
should  say,  the  blood-red  herring.  It  was  all  out  of  key 
with  the  noble  oration,  with  the  silent  marble  face, — these 
witticisms,  these  crude,  caustic  epigrams,  these  colloquial 
tropes  and  turns,  this  rush  of  breezy  prose.  But  she  was 
in  the  minority.  The  audience  seemed  rather  to  accept 
with  relief  these  draughts  of  common  air  after  the  tenu- 
ous ether  of  the  heights.  The  young  man  was  apparently 
a  local  favorite.  A  ripple  of  laughter  occasionally  swell- 
ing to  a  roar  followed  his  sentences.  And  presently, 
as  he  grew  less  smart  and  more  serious,  Allegra  herself 
was  drawn  into  the  sympathetic  current.  Perhaps  it  was 

118 


MIDSTOKE 

because  she  suddenly  recognized  in  him  the  young  man 
of  yesterday,  who  had  called  on  the  mob  to  give  three 
cheers  for  her,  and  who  had  headed  the  "  huzzahing 
horses!"  Perhaps  it  was  because  he  had  arrived  at  the 
eulogium  which,  it  seemed,  he  had  to  pronounce  on  her 
father,  through  the  medium  of  this  vote  of  thanks.  And 
now  the  flippant  note  died  away  altogether.  Emotion 
came  into  his  harsh  incisive  tones  as  he  spoke  of  the  great 
apostle  of  light  who  was  honoring  them  and  their  dead 
hero  that  day,  and  who  might  now  say,  like  Elijah,  "  I, 
even  I  only,  am  left  a  prophet  of  the  Lord;  but  Baal's 
prophets  are  four  hundred  and  fifty  men."  What  a  priv- 
ilege for  himself  that  afternoon  to  kiss,  so  to  speak,  the 
hem  of  Elijah's  mantle!  And  then  growing  prophetic 
himself,  he  declaimed  against  the  wrongs  of  the  poor  and 
the  down-trodden,  and  the  corruptions  of  princes  and 
bishops  and  the  aristocracy  till  great  cords  of  passion 
stood  out  on  his  temples. 

A  brazen  speech  enough,  but  the  brass  was  martial  and 
Allegra  thrilled  to  it.  This  bold  outspokenness,  this 
blasphemy  against  Church  and  Crown,  was  what  her  mood 
demanded:  her  father's  words  shrank  to  timidity  before 
this  iconoclastic  vigor.  Here  was  a  fighter.  Before  he 
had  finished,  she  had  forgiven  his  unhappy  beginning,  as- 
signed it  to  a  rehearsed  jest,  the  prepared  spring-board 
for  impromptu  soarings. 

When  he  sat  down,  she  could  have  joined  in  the 
"  Bravo,  Bob,"  of  a  fervent  admirer.  His  other  name  was 
Broser,  she  learnt  from  the  seconder  of  the  motion,  and 
when  the  vote  of  thanks  was  passed,  and  the  hubbub  of 
exodus  began,  she  was  not  sorry  to  find  the  young  warrior 
pushing  his  way  towards  her  father,  as  if  bent  on  a  per- 
sonal hand-shake.  Her  father  gave  it  effusively,  and  just 
as  Allegra  was  hoping  Mr.  Broser  would  insist  on  her 
acquaintance,  too,  the  fiery  sledge-hammer  introduced  his 
wife  to  the  Minister.  Allegra  gazed  with  interest  at  the 
lady,  glad  to  find  her  a  small  meek  creature  who  might  be 

119 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

expected  duly  to  sink  herself  in  her  husband's  perfervid 
personality.  But  she  had  scarcely  satisfied  her  curiosity, 
when  she  felt  a  dig  in  the  back  as  from  a  stick.  She 
turned  and  saw  with  a  shock  the  Duchess  of  Dalesbury 
brandishing  a  parasol. 

"  Let  us  congratulate  each  other,  Alligator,"  said  the 
Duchess. 


"  You  here  ?"  murmured  Allegra. 
it 


Yes — Rosmere  is  not  so  many  miles  off,  I  was  dyin' 
to  hear  how  he  spoke,  and  I've  been  behind  you  incognita 
all  the  time.  He  is  splendid — splendid — tells  these  poor 
fools  nonsense  of  course,  but  the  English  of  it,  the  English 
of  it.  There  ain't  many  that  can  use  English  like  the 
Marjorimonts.  But  what  a  terrible  person — that  Bob." 

"  Terrible  to  the  Throne  and  the  Church,  I  grant  you," 
said  Allegra  sturdily.  Her  last  repugnance  to  Broser 
vanished  before  the  Duchess's  disapproval. 

"  What !     You  admire  that  brass-mouthed  atheist  ?" 

"  Hush,  hush,  he  can  hear  you." 

"  And  didn't  I  have  to  hear  him  ?  The  fat  boy  in  Pick- 
wick, indeed!  I  felt  like  thumpin'  him  with  my  para- 
sol." 

"  If  you  had  spent  a  night  in  the  iron-works,  you  would 
have  felt  like  thumping  the  capitalists." 

"  And  who  is  your  Bob — a  mill-owner's  son,  I  heard 
somebody  say." 

"  I  don't  know — but  if  so,  it's  all  the  nobler  of  him — 
to  feel  for  the  poor — like  father." 

"  Like  your  father !  You  dare  to  compare  that  beef- 
faced  bully  to  my  brother !  O  Alligator !" 

"  He  isn't  a  bully,  and  if  he  is,  you  all  deserve  it.  He 
is  the  kind  of  man  England  wants — to  carry  on  father's 
work." 

"  England  in  need  of  men  like  that !  No,  Alligator, 
England  needs  gentlemen."  Allegra  restrained  herself. 

"  And  how  is  Lady  Minnie  ?"  she  asked  distantly. 

"  More  beautiful  than  ever." 

120 


MIDSTOKE 

"  And  the  Duke  ?" 

"  He  is  writing  another  book." 

Allegra,  alarmed  lest  she  should  betray  ignorance  of  the 
others,  hastened  to  say,  "  Shall  I  tell  father  you  are 
here  ?" 

"  No,  I  will  tell  him  myself — as  soon  as  he  disentangles 
himself  from  his  horny-handed  worshippers." 

This,  however,  proved  a  longer  process  than  the  Duchess 
could  endure,  so  protruding  her  parasol  through  a  hole  in 
the  mob,  she  prodded  the  Minister  between  the  ribs. 

"  Good-afternoon,  Tom !" 

"  Emma !"  The  Minister  dropped  the  glass  of  water 
Broser  had  just  handed  him,  and  Mrs.  Broser's  meek 
bodice  was  copiously  besplashed. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  stammered. 

"  No  matter,  no  matter  in  the  least,"  cried  Broser. 
"  My  only  regret  is  that  the  glass  you  drank  from  is 
broken,  and  I  had  hoped  to  guard  it  as  an  heirloom." 

"  Are  you  comin',  Tom  ?" 

"  Presently,  Emma,  presently." 

"  But  I  want  you  to  dine  with  me." 

"  At  Rosmere  ?     Impossible." 

"  Then,  I'll  dine  with  you." 

"  I  am  sorry.  I  have  just  promised  Mr.  Broser  to  dine 
with  him.  Emma,  may  I  introduce  Mr.  Broser  ?  Mr. 
Broser — this  is  my  sister,  the  Duchess  of  Dalesbury." 

Mr.  Broser  having  no  glass  to  drop,  dropped  an  "  h  " 
in  his  agitation  as  he  declared  his  'appiness  at  meeting 
the  Duchess.  The  Duchess  smiled  sweetly  upon  him  in 
return  and  declared  her  happiness  at  witnessing  his  ora- 
torical triumph.  His  face  shone  like  a  patted  school- 
boy's as  he  rejoined:  "I  am  sure  we  shall  be  only  too  de- 
lighted and  honored  to  have  her  Grace,  too,  at  our  humble 
board." 

"  Nothing  would  give  me  greater  pleasure,"  returned 
the  Duchess,  with  infinite  suavity.  "  But  I  have  not  met 
my  brother  for  so  long  that  I  am  sure  a  gentleman  of  Mr. 

121 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Broser's  taste  and  good  feeling  will  surrender  him  to  me 
altogether,  just  for  this  once." 

Mr.  Broser  replied  with  his  ready  wit  that,  placed  as 
he  was  between  Scylla  and  Chary bdis  (he  mispronounced 
both),  and  having  to  choose  between  paining  himself  and 
paining  the  Duchess,  he  had  no  option  but  to  deny  himself 
the  honor  and  pleasure  of  entertaining  Midstoke's  revered 
visitor.  Whereupon  with  much  gallant  bowing  and  curt- 
sying the  Duchess  and  the  Demagogue  took  leave  of  each 
other.  Her  Grace  bore  off  the  Minister,  and  Mrs.  Broser, 
forgotten  of  all,  followed  in  the  wake  of  her  husband. 
Awed  by  the  presence  of  a  Duchess,  the  rest  of  the  crowd 
dissipated,  leaving  the  lion  free. 

Allegra  had  beheld  the  little  comedy  with  silent  amaze- 
ment. It  was  the  only  time  she  had  seen  the  Duchess 
polite.  But  when,  as  they  descended  the  platform  the 
Duchess  said  sharply :  "  Oh  Tom,  to  think  if  I  hadn't 
come,  you  would  have  broken  bread  with  that  beast!" 
Allegra  intervened  angrily :  "  But  you  told  him  you  en- 
joyed his  speech." 

"  My  dear,"  said  the  Duchess,  "  one  isn't  rude  to  that 
sort  of  person." 

Allegra  turned  to  her  father  and  took  his  hand  lovingly : 
"  Are  you  tired,  dear  ?" 

"  No,  not  tired — but  a  little  ashamed." 

"  Ashamed,  father  ?     Of  what  ?" 

"  I  was  too  theatrical — that  clasping  of  the  bust !" 

"  That  was  fine,  father.  It  had  all  the  thrill  of  drama 
with  all  the  weight  of  reality."  Allegra  was  unconscious- 
ly summing  up  her  impressions  of  the  whole  meeting. 

"  My  only  consolation  is  that  I  hadn't  rehearsed  it. 
It  came  of  itself.  But  how  they  cheered  that,  while  the 
real  solid  parts  of  my  speech  made  them  restive,  so  that  I 
caught  myself  working  up  to  fresh  cheers.  Ah,  that  is 
the  worst  of  addressing  meetings.  You  sink  to  an  actor. 
You  long  to  spice  and  over-color,  you  can't  endure  long 
arid  tracts  of  silence,  even  though  you  know  that  frequent 

122 


MIDSTOKE 

cheers  are  the  sure  signs  of  bad  speaking;  of  a  mere  fire- 
work display." 

"  I  don't  see  that,  Tom,"  said  the  Duchess,  as  they  came 
into  the  street 

"  Surely,  Emma !  Frequent  cheers  mark  a  lack  of 
continuous  exposition.  The  cheer  should  be  the  climax 
of  a  gradual  ascent." 

"  Three  cheers  for  Marshmont !"  cried  a  voice,  and  the 
mob  that  had  not  got  in,  gave  them. 

"  How  badly  you  must  have  been  speaking  just  then, 
father,"  Allegra  laughed,  as  they  entered  their  carriage. 

"  Yes,  he  was  talkin'  nonsense,"  assented  the  Duchess. 
"  Cheers  are  the  certificates  of  eloquence." 

"  Well,  Mr.  Broser  got  more  than  father,"  said  Allegra 

slyly- 

"  Possibly  your  father  may  be  right,"  the  Duchess  ad- 
mitted meditatively. 


CHAPTEE    XII 
RECONCILIATION 

THE  dinner,  served  in  the  private  sitting-room,  began 
placidly  enough,  politics  being  left  behind  with  the 
high-hatted  saints  in  stained  glass,  though  the  mildness 
thus  engendered  in  the  conversation  gave  the  meal  rather 
a  vegetarian  air.  The  Duchess  had  heavy  arrears  of  fam- 
ily gossip  to  deliver  to  her  prodigal  brother,  who  listened 
with  more  patience  than  Allegra.  The  girl  was  still  un- 
der the  intoxication  of  her  first  public  meeting,  and  re- 
sented trivial  details  concerning  commonplace  creatures 
of  fashion,  who,  instead  of  "  working  for  the  world,"  let 
the  world  work  for  them.  Even  so  had  Mabel,  fresh  from 
the  romance  of  her  first  ball,  resented  her  mother's  remind- 
er in  the  homeward  carriage  that  cook  had  given  notice 
to  leave,  and  father's  throat  was  beginning  to  worry  him. 

But  if  Allegra  still  felt  hostile  to  the  Duchess  and  her 
world,  the  Duchess  had  apparently  nothing  but  the  most 
amiable  sentiments  towards  Allegra,  and  having  renewed 
her  invitation  to  Rosmere,  she  grew  so  eager  when  Alle- 
gra refused  it  that  nothing  could  content  her  but  to  carry 
off  the  girl  at  the  point  of  her  fork. 

In  vain  Allegra  wriggled  in  deprecation,  protesting  to 
the  point  of  mendacity. 

The  Duchess  was  not  accustomed  to  other  people  getting 
their  own  way.  "  A  bird  in  the  hand  is  worth  two  in  the 
bush,"  she  said. 

"  Then  let  me  help  you  to  some  more  partridge,"  said 
Marshmont  good-humoredly. 

124 


RECONCILIATION 

She  held  out  her  plate  instantly.  "  I'll  have  partridge 
and  Alligator  too." 

"  My  dear  Emma !     What  a  menu !" 

"  Yes,  it  does  seem  as  if  the  child  was  afraid  I  would 
eat  her." 

"  No,"  said  Allegra  smiling.  "  Only  that  I  should 
disagree  with  you." 

"  Tut !  I'm  not  afraid  of  that,"  replied  the  Duchess, 
missing  the  jest. 

"  Alligator  is  tougher  than  partridge,"  her  brother  hint- 
ed slyly. 

"  Ha !  ha !  In  that  sense.  Why,  that  was  almost  worthy 
of  my  Minnie.  But  as  aunts  don't  eat  nieces,  dear,"  and 
she  put  down  her  fork  to  pat  the  girl's  cheek,  "  there'll 
be  no  disagreein'.  When  you  are  older  " — Allegra  shud- 
dered, foreseeing  that  eternal  cocksure  croak  of  pessi- 
mism— "  no,  you  needn't  shudder,  you've  got  ages  before 
you,  but  when  you  do  get  older,  you'll  find  out  that  all 
the  nice  people  agree  more  than  they  disagree.  Take 
this  bird,  for  instance — you  and  I  both  agree  about  that." 
And  she  resumed  her  fork. 

"  I  doubt  it,"  replied  Allegra  obstinately.  "  To  you  a 
partridge's  life  is  more  precious  than  a  peasant's." 

"  Nonsense.     Who  told  you  that  ?" 

"  I  have  read  about  the  Game  Laws.  A  partridge  may 
only  be  shot  between  now  and  February,  a  poacher  all  the 
year  round." 

"  The  child  is  right,  Emma,"  said  Marshmont. 

"  Then  the  Bible  is  wrong,  Thomas,  for  the  Bible  says 
'  Thou  shalt  not  steal.' ' 

"  The  stealing  isn't  entirely  on  the  poacher's  side,"  said 
Marshmont.  "  The  ground  game  injure  the  farmer's 
crop,  but  he  has  no  remedy.  That's  where  the  United 
States  are  so  ahead  of  us — they  started  free  from  Feudal- 
ism. Here,  if  Hodge  throws  his  stick  at  a  hare  that  cross- 
es his  path,  he  may  be  clapped  into  prison.  The  whole 
thing's  a  superstition." 

125 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  "Not  at  all,  Thomas,"  said  the  Duchess  smartly. 
"  The  superstition  is,  that  it  is  unlucky  if  a  hare  crosses 
your  path.  If  you  throw  your  stick  at  the  hare,  you  de- 
serve to  be  unlucky." 

"  Not  if  you  are  unlucky  already,"  Allegra  protested. 
"  Not  if — as  Deldon  puts  it — 

'You  sow  that  others  may  reap, 
And  reap  that  others  may  riot.' 

A  farm-laborer  who  toils  and  sweats  all  the  week  round 
yet  never  earns  enough  to  taste  meat,  has  the  right  to  catch 
all  he  can." 

"  So  has  the  policeman,"  laughed  the  Duchess. 

"  And  the  Devil !"  added  Allegra  sternly. 

The  Duchess  dropped  her  fork  again,  but  riot  to  pat 
Allegra's  cheek.  "  Well,  Thomas,"  she  said,  "  this  is 
nice  language  your  daughter  holds." 

"  Do  you  mean  the  sentiment  or  the  phraseology  ? 
Both  seem  to  me  essentially  religious." 

"  If  that  is  your  idea  of  religion,"  said  the  Duchess 
frigidly,  "  I  will  trouble  you  to  serve  the  apple  tart.  Ar- 
gument is  useless." 

The  grand  manner  somewhat  abashed  Allegra.  "  I 
warned  you,  Duchess,  we  should  never  agree,"  she  mur- 
mured. 

"  Don't  call  me  Duchess.  I'm  your  Aunt  Emma. 
You'll  be  saying  your  Grace  next." 

Allegra  laughed  merrily.  "  Why,  so  I  will,  Aunt 
Emma.  For  that's  my  idea  of  religion." 

Her  father  chuckled  too  as  he  served  the  apple  tart,  and 
the  Duchess  after  a  moment  of  bewilderment  joined  in 
the  laugh. 

"  Then  it's  settled  you're  comin'  with  your  Aunt  Em- 
ma," she  said  beamingly. 

Allegra  was  taken  aback.     "  But — 

"  But  what  ?  Haven't  we  threshed  it  all  out  ?  Your 
sisters  will  send  you  on  extra  frocks.  Your  father  admits 

126 


RECONCILIATION 

he  won't  mind  goin*  home  by  himself — he's  accustomed 
to  solitary  travel." 

"  But  he  has  no  secretary  when  he  does  get  home." 

"Well,  to  tell  the  truth,  Allegra,"  said  the  Minister, 
"  that  young  man — I  forget  his  name — who  made  such  a 
clever  speech — " 

"  Broser,"  she  prompted  instantly. 

"  Ah,  yes,  Broser.  He  was  just  begging  me  to  use  him 
in  some  such  capacity  when  your  aunt  came  up.  He  said 
— well,  he  was  very  nattering,  and — 

"  And  what  does  he  expect  for  his  services  ?"  interrupt- 
ed the  Duchess. 

"  Nothing :  nothing  whatever." 

"  Precisely  what  they  are  worth,  Thomas.  But  you 
know  I  don't  mean  money.  Half  the  heirs  and  all  the 
younger  sons  would  be  glad  of  the  job  at  the  same  salary. 
It's  the  short  cut  to  a  political  career." 

"  Oh,  aunt,"  protested  Allegra  flushing.  "  It  was 
very  fine  of  him.  It  showed  his  reverence  for  father 
was  not  merely  oratorical;  that  he  really  does  want  to 
kiss  the  hem  of  Elijah's  mantle — 

"  By  way  of  hangin'  on  to  it." 

"  No,  really,  Emma.  I  cannot  permit  you  to  say  that. 
One  must  beware  of  reading  low  motives  into  everything. 
I  would  stake  my  life  on  that  young  man's  sincerity." 

"  And  so  would  I,"  said  Allegra. 

"  When  you  have  lost  both  your  lives,"  said  the  Duch- 
ess, "  don't  forget  I  warned  you.  Meantime  I  will  take 
some  more  cream  with  my  tart.  Thank  you,  Alligator. 
How  long  shall  you  need  to  pack  ?" 

"  But  mother — " 

"  Your  mother  will  be  delighted.  Your  father  admits 
that  much.  A  girl  of  your  age  must  be  provided  for. 
At  home  you  stand  no  chance.  Mr.  Fitzwinter's  place  is 
doubtless  delightful,  but  you'll  never  get  a  proposal  there  ! 
At  Rosmere  now,  with  Minnie  attractin'  all  the  nice 


young  men — " 


127 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  You  think  I  may  come  in  for  her  cast-off  proposals. 
No,  thank  you,  aunt." 

"  You  little  minx !    Did  I  offer  you  Minnie's  leavin's  ?" 

"  Here  is  the  waiter  back,"  murmured  Allegra,  her 
cheeks  burning. 

"  Then  he  can  remove  our  leavin's,"  said  the  Duchess 
loudly. 

Allegra  discovered  later  that  the  Duchess  did  not  mind 
discussing  intimate  topics  before  servants — a  habit  of 
which  she  was  not  quite  weaned  even  when  they  began  to 
contribute  to  society  journals.  But  there  was  one  thing 
which  she  discovered  almost  immediately  and  with  no 
less  surprise :  to  wit,  that  the  Duchess's  kiss  was  warm 
and  motherly.  Not  that  she  remembered  such  a  kiss  from 
her  mother's  lips,  but  it  had  the  quality  which  she  instinc- 
tively associated  with  motherliness.  The  kiss  was  given 
while  the  waiter  was  handing  round  the  black  coffee;  so 
disconcerting  Allegra  that  she  forgot  to  take  sugar,  and  so 
dulcifying  her  that  she  forgot  to  notice  its  absence.  All 
her  dislike  for  the  prejudiced  patrician  melted  in  this 
sudden  sense  of  a  kind  stout  lady.  And  now  that  she  al- 
owed  herself  to  be  seduced  to  Rosmere,  she  found  that 
an  undercurrent  had  all  along  been  flowing  in  that  direc- 
tion, towards  this  larger  unknown  life,  even  towards  the 
shy  Duke,  and  the  interesting  if  unbeautiful  Minnie. 
The  Duchess  herself  had  always  had  the  attraction  of  re- 
pulsion. Now  she  appeared  a  more  desirable  protectress 
than  Mrs.  Marshmont,  even  as,  despite  Fizzy's  delicate 
absence,  the  Devonshire  house  seemed  less  habitable  than 
Rosmere.  Mr.  Broser's  reverential  discipleship  had  sug- 
gested how  she  could  be  replaced  as  amanuensis.  Re- 
placed ?  Nay,  her  father  for  the  first  time  would  find  at 
his  elbow  a  spirit  of  fire  and  love!  Broser  would  even 
serve  as  an  antidote  to  her  mother ! 

128 


CHAPTER   XIII 
FEUDALISM 

A  T  Hazelhurst — the  rural  suburb  of  her  father's  con- 
-^*-  stituency — where  the  Marshmonts  had  an  old 
house  of  the  same  name  standing  in  a  couple  of  acres, 
Allegra  had  lived  with  the  woods  and  streams,  her  ac- 
quaintance with  the  natives  being  limited  to  the  old  gar- 
dener who  grew  on  the  premises,  and  the  nearest  farmer's 
wife,  who  came  to  cackle  over  her  chickens  before  they 
were  hatched;  and  her  impression  of  the  life  of  the  vil- 
lage, being  founded  mainly  on  its  flamboyant  fineries  in 
church,  had  something  of  an  operatic  color.  It  was  little 
Joan  who  had  taken  those  opportunities  for  more  intimate 
acquaintance  which  Charity  affords,  and  had  accompanied 
her  mother's  crinoline  and  Gwenny's  jellies  into  the  poky 
cottages  of  the  poor — poor  Dissenters  preferred.  But  at 
Rosmere  Allegra  saw  the  whole  social  phenomenon  both ' 
from  an  unfamiliar  point  of  view  and  with  her  new 
purged  vision.  She  congratulated  herself  on  her  oppor- 
tunity, and  resolved  to  collect  data  and  draw  up  a  Report 
that  might  be  of  use  to  her  father — or  even  Mr.  Broser — 
in  the  campaign  against  Feudalism. 

At  Rosmere  was  a  more  comfortable  palace  than  most 
kings  have  possessed  in  the  long  run  of  history,  so  was  the 
territory  it  dominated  more  drowsily  content  than  most 
kingdoms.  Far  from  uneasy  lay  the  head  that  wore  this 
coronet.  The  gracious  father  of  his  country-side,  the 
Duke  radiated  patriarchal  authority  for  miles  around; 
or  rather,  it  was  the  ducal  House,  surrounded  by  its  stiff 
bodyguard  of  park  palings,  that  threw  its  spell  over  the 

129 


THE   MANTLE   OF  ELIJAH 

district — a  spell  independent  of  transient  ducal  individu- 
als, yet  requiring  the  duke  regnant  for  its  plenary  magic. 
For  when  the  flag  forbore  to  fly  on  the  hunting-tower,  an 
aching  emptiness  exhaled  from  the  historic  house,  given 
over  to  gaping  tourists  and  admiring  artists.  Long  before 
you  reached  the  house's  visible  presence  you  became  aware 
of  it,  as  of  the  distant  rumor  of  a  great  city.  "  The 
Duke,"  "  Rosmere,"  "  Her  Grace,"  hovered  perpetually 
on  the  lips  of  men  and  yokels.  It  was  the  Temple  at 
which  all  was  offered  up — oxen  and  sheep,  horses  and 
asses,  and  man-servants  and  maid-servants — whence  all 
help  proceeded :  a  very  present  refuge  in  trouble. 

The  farmers  got  their  farms  from  it,  the  tradesmen 
their  shops,  the  schoolmaster  his  main  subsidy,  the  school- 
children their  treats,  the  clergyman  his  cure  of  souls,  the 
peasants  odd  jobs,  the  needy  alms,  and  everybody  advice : 
it  offered  places  to  foresters,  woodmen,  gardeners ;  the  boys 
beat  its  coverts,  the  poachers  robbed  them,  and  were  caught 
by  its  keepers  and  sentenced  by  itself.  In  its  magisterial 
capacity  the  house  agreed  with  its  own  ideas  as  a  land- 
lord. Its  weight  predominated  in  all  questions  of  county 
government  and  taxation.  In  brief,  the  temporary  occu- 
pant of  this  Temple  became  Providence's  vicegerent  for 
the  parish. 

Absorbing  all  this  through  her  sensitive  pores,  Allegra 
understood  why  the  first  sight  of  the  Duchess  had  given 
her  so  muffled  a  thrill.  A  Duchess  out  of  her  castle  was 
like  a  tortoise  out  of  its  shell,  a  soft  green  shapelessness, 
without  a  jot  of  the  clamped  dignity  of  its  native  scali- 
ness.  "  A  peer  and  his  possessions  should  never  be  part- 
ed," she  noted  in  her  Report.  And  of  a  truth  the  hum- 
blest periwinkle  is  an  impressive  object  concealed  in  its 
contorted  fastnesses,  whilst  exposed  to  a  cold  world  on  a 
pin's  point  its  flaccid  personality  is  painfully  apparent. 
And  even  an  inviolate  periwinkle  loses  if,  instead  of  cling- 
ing solitary  to  a  remote  rock,  it  comes  to  London  and  is 
accessible  in  pints. 

130 


FEUDALISM 

"  How  differently  I  should  have  addressed  Aunt  Em- 
ma," wrote  Allegra,  "  if,  instead  of  her  tapping  me  on  the 
shoulder,  I  had  had  to  penetrate  through  all  this  public 
rumor  of  Rosmere,  all  these  sacred  privacies  of  moor  and 
forest,  and  deer-dappled  vistas  of  Park,  and  avenues  of 
footmen,  before  I  could  get  a  worshipful  glimpse  of  her, 
just  as  I  had  to  pass  through  scarlet  soldiers  and  solemn 
beef-eaters  and  courtiers  in  fancy  dress,  and  shiver  in  a 
carriage,  and  be  kept  dangling  in  a  ball-room,  before  I 
could  kiss  the  Queen's  hand.  What  you  find  wrapped  up 
in  so  many  papers  must  be  precious.  No  wonder  the 
Duchess  behaves  as  she  does.  She  carries  Rosmere  with 
her  when  she  goes  abroad,  and  forgets  we  are  not  all  of 
her  parish.  And  yet  I  dare  say  her  title  dazzles  many 
into  stomaching  her  rudeness.  Burns  says: 

'  The  rank  is  but  the  guinea  stamp, 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that.' 

But  often  the  rank  seems  to  me  more  like  the  stamp  on  a 
bank-note,  which  depends  for  its  value  entirely  on  the 
stamp.  Is  the  Duchess  stamped  gold  or  stamped  paper '? 
At  present  I  put  her  down  as  silver,  but  as  I  began  by 
thinking  her  copper,  or  rather  brass,  her  intrinsic  value 
may  rise  further.  All  the  same  she  imposes  herself  by 
dint  of  her  stamp,  not  of  her  essence." 

When  she  avowed  to  the  inquiring  Minnie  the  secret  of 
her  frequent  withdrawals  to  the  solitude  of  her  room, 
Minnie  said  with  an  indignant  air  that  she  was  a  spy  in 
enemy's  country. 

"  I  am  no  spy,"  Allegra  retorted.  "  A  spy  sneaks  in 
secretly.  You  all  knew  which  side  I  was  on  when  you  in- 
vited me." 

"  You  are  a  spy,"  Minnie  persisted,  "  and  as  such  liable 
to  be  shot — especially  if  you  go  out  after  the  birds  with 
father." 

Allegra  laughed.  The  Duke's  plebeian  awkwardness 
with  his  gun  brought  him  many  a  scolding  from  his  head 

131 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

keeper,  and  was  one  of  the  bitters  in  the  Duchess's  am- 
brosial cup.  While  Allegra  was  laughing,  it  occurred  to 
her  that  Minnie  had  been  joking  all  along,  for  she  had 
not  vet  discovered  anything  in  life  which  Minnie  seemed 
to  take  as  earnestly  as  she  herself  took  everything ;  unless 
it  was  making  little  sketches  of  scenery  and  people:  an 
occupation  for  which  Allegra  in  her  present  phase  had  a 
Puritan  contempt.  At  any  rate  she  felt  Minnie  would 
have  done  better  to  minister  to  a  great  male  painter  than 
to  express  her  own  feeble  femininity  on  canvas. 

Another  cause  that  threw  her  back  on  herself  she  did 
not  confess  even  to  Minnie.  It  was  an  experience  that, 
but  for  her  knowledge  of  her  father  and  Mr.  Broser,  might 
have  shaken  her  faith  in  masculinity.  "  The  heirs  " — 
served  without  their  shells — not  attracting  her,  she  con- 
fined her  conversation  largely  to  the  elderly  personages 
of  distinction  who  passed  through  the  house,  and  from 
whom  she  gleaned  much  instruction,  particularly  when 
they  were  foreigners.  But  the  more  fascinatingly  in- 
structive they  were,  the  more  they  seemed  to  fall  into  the 
flippancies  of  flirtation.  It  was  very  surprising  to  Alle- 
gra, this  Dulsie-like  levity  of  the  learned  and  the  famous, 
with  names  on  "  the  Scroll  " ;  still  more  surprising  when 
she  had  glimpses  of  deeper  designs  than  flirtation,  as  when 
the  old  Admiral  of  Arctic  renown,  whose  pretty  young 
wife  was  the  magnet  of  "  the  heirs,"  began  to  pour  out 
his  passion  for  her  among  the  orchids.  Startled  as  Alle- 
gra was  to  find  a  breezy  seaman,  whom  she  associated  un- 
consciously with  white  glaciers,  expressing  himself  tropi- 
cally in  a  conservatory,  a  deeper  amaze  forced  from  her 
lips  the  cry:  "  But  you  are  married !" 

"  Don't  be  so  morbid,  my  dear !"  said  the  ruddy-faced 
old  hero.  He  attempted  to  kiss  her,  but  she  fled  out  of  the 
glass-house  as  if  its  air  was  stifling  her. 

Thus  was  another  veil  of  happy  illusion  removed  from 
the  girl's  eyes,  and  a  new  and  "  morbid  "  world  opened  to 
her.  What!  Marriage  neither  prevented  men  from 

132 


FEUDALISM 

making  love,  nor  was  the  aim  of  their  love-making.  One 
could  not  be  safe  even  with  the  married!  Tossed  be- 
tween bachelors  who  \vanted  to  wed,  and  husbands  who 
did  not,  a  girl  might  well  take  on  the  look  of  a  hunted 
creature.  And  what  Protean  shapes  this  love  could  as- 
sume— an  orchid  itself  surely,  now  poetic,  now  fantastic, 
now  grotesque!  To  evade  the  men's  conversation  alto- 
gether, Allegra  often  played  to  them  after  dinner  in  the 
vast  Louis  Seize  drawing-room — so  gracious  to  her  eye 
after  the  rococo  of  home — and  as  she  had  many  pieces  at 
her  fingers'  ends,  she  dodged  even  the  masculine  turning 
over  of  the  music.  By  day  shooting  and,  later,  hunting 
rid  her  of  the  sex,  so  that  after  passionate  arguments 
against  both  amusements,  she  had  come  to  see  their  value. 
When  the  ladies  were  invited  to  join  the  men  at  the  bill- 
iard-table in  a  harmless  game  of  "  shell-out,"  Allegra 
would  slip  up  to  her  room  and  her  Report. 

But  to  the  Duchess,  Allegra  made  no  report  of  any  kind. 
She  did  not  like  to  tell  her  Grace — so  beamingly  perva- 
sive a  fairy  godmother — that  some  of  her  guests  could  not 
be  trusted  beyond  her  nose.  She  wished  that  similar 
things  would  happen  to  Minnie,  so  that  the  offenders  might 
be  expelled,  but  either  Minnie  was  respected  by  all,  or  she 
was  as  reticent  as  Allegra. 

The  Duke  himself,  though  he  was  very  affectionate  in 
his  manner,  never  went  beyond  holding  her  hand  or  pat- 
ting it,  as  at  Lady  Huston's,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  walk 
with  him  in  the  sculpture-gallery  or  sit  with  him  in  his 
great  solemn  library  with  the  frescoed  ceilings,  and  calf 
and  morocco  walls,  and  turn  over  his  vast  collection  of  en- 
gravings of  the  Old  Masters,  and  realize  with  sudden  com- 
placency that  here  she  was  at  the  very  heart  of  hearts  of 
this  wonderful  historic  Rosmere.  And  in  such  moments  a 
sense  of  some  greatness,  that  was  and  yet  was  not  the  pock- 
marked kindly  old  man,  some  real  golden  bullion  in  His- 
tory's vaults  to  justify  this  ducal  bank-note,  mingled  dim- 
ly and  as  if  apologetically  with  her  irrepressible  snobbish- 

133 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

ness.  After  the  belch  and  whir  of  Midstoke,  Rosmere  with 
its  great  tradition,  its  treasure  of  art  and  memories,  seem- 
ed the  protest  of  the  human  soul  against  the  rawness  of 
life,  an  expression  of  its  own  essential  dignity.  Thus,  and 
no  otherwise,  should  the  human  spirit  be  housed.  She  felt 
herself  equal  to  this  shell.  But  in  the  Report  such  consid- 
erations were  dismissed  as  the  "  soporific  sophistry  of 
possession." 

Remembering  that  the  Duke  too  was  literary,  she  hunt- 
ed secretly  in  the  catalogue  for  his  works,  but  could  not 
find  them,  and  was  driven  to  ask  for  them.  He  ex- 
plained deprecatingly  that  he  had  only  published 
one  of  them  as  yet,  and  at  her  instance  he  produced  it  shy- 
ly. It  was  a  slim  elegant  folio,  called  Orvieto,  con- 
sisting largely  of  elaborate  colored  illustrations.  He  ex- 
plained the  title  was  the  name  of  a  town,  not  far  from 
Rome,  which  contained  some  of  the  earliest  monuments 
of  Italian  art.  These  and  the  Etruscan  antiquities  had 
so  interested  him,  when  he  was  making  the  Grand  Tour 
with  his  tutor,  that  he  had  set  to  work  to  write  a  mono- 
graph on  the  town,  which  he  believed  had  helped  to  direct 
attention  to  it.  He  showed  her  in  the  Preface  his  grate- 
ful acknowledgments  to  the  tutor. 

"  Is  that  architecture  ?"  cried  Allegra,  catching  sight 
of  the  gorgeous  frontispiece — a  many-colored  reproduction 
of  a  cathedral  fagade.  "  It  looks  like  a  page  of  an  illumi- 
nated missal." 

"  That's  exactly  what  I  say  it  is — in  stone,"  said  the 
Duke,  pointing,  enchanted,  to  the  text.  "  These  quaint 
Biblical  scenes  are  bas-reliefs." 

"  How  young  God  is  in  the  Garden  of  Eden !"  she  said. 
"  In  most  of  your  other  Italian  engravings  He  is  an  old 
man.  But  I  suppose  it  is  just  as  defensible  to  figure 
Him  as  a  young  man.  How  I  should  love  to  go  to  Italy 
and  see  all  these  wonderful  things !" 

"  Perhaps  I  shall  take  you  some  day,"  said  the  Duke, 
and  Allegra  wondered  why  he  sighed.  In  the  interim  she 

134 


FEUDALISM 

devoured  his  book  at  a  gulp,  and  expressed  to  him  her 
pleasure  at  the  meal:  whereupon  he  presented  her  with 
a  copy,  inscribed  "  To  the  Dear  Reader."  It  seemed 
almost  too  expensive  a  present — a  sort  of  reduced  edition 
of  Rosmere — and  Allegra  considered  remorsefully  if  she 
had  seemed  to  tout  for  it,  as  for  Fitzwinter's  mare.  His 
next  book  seemed,  however,  both  a  safe  and  a  pleasing 
topic,  and  she  wormed  out  of  him  that  it  would  be  called 
Five  French  Cathedrals,  but  that  he  would  not  publish 
till  he  had  revised  his  early  impressions  by  another  visit. 
Owing  to  the  Duchess's  reluctance  to  cross  the  Channel, 
he  could  not  fix  the  date  of  publication.  He  spoke  of  the 
actual  publication  of  the  work  as  if  that  were  the  least 
part;  he  trampled  magnificently  upon  the  Cornucopian 
traditions,  and  Allegra  had  a  vision  of  publishers'  doors 
flying  open  at  the  talismanic  password :  "  Rosmere !" 
Allegra's  first  impression  of  him  as  a  soul  muffled  protect- 
ively in  a  great  beard  persisted — it  seemed  a  shrinking, 
beautiful  soul;  and  if  she  could  not  share  the  Duchess's 
vision  of  his  physical  beauty,  she  made  no  secret  of  her 
admiration  of  his  spiritual  gifts.  "  Didn't  I  tell  you 
he  was  an  encyclopaedia  ?"  cried  the  Duchess,  enraptured. 
"  And  so  handsome,  too !  Like  an  encyclopaedia  in  a  beau- 
tiful bindin' !  Don't  you  think  his  beard  becomes  him  ? 
He  set  the  fashion  in  beards.  Nobody  wore  a  beard 
before  the  Crimean  war — except  a  few  dowagers.  I  al- 
ways tell  Minnie  how  grateful  she  ought  to  be  for  having 
had  two  chances  of  beauty." 

It  still  appeared  to  Allegra  that  she  had  taken  neither, 
having  at  most  a  curious  subtlety  of  expression  that  neu- 
tralized the  indistinction  of  her  somewhat  overgrown 
figure,  but  in  the  face  of  the  Duchess's  extraordinary 
conviction  she  doubted  her  own  senses.  Politics  was  the 
only  topic  of  conversation  on  which  she  was  sure  the  Duch- 
ess was  wrong,  the  truth  here  being  so  simple  and  ob- 
vious. 

When  the  Novabarbese  trouble  came  to  what  The  Times 

135 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

called  a  climax,  and  the  British  Lion  roared  for  blood, 
Allegra  shocked  the  breakfast  table  by  retailing  Mr.  Will- 
iam Fitzwinter's  revelations.  It  was  as  if  a  number  of 
the  dreadful  Morning  Mirror  had  been  served  up  instead 
of  The  Times.  Allegra  barely  saved  the  situation  by 
mentioning  that,  according  to  a  letter  from  Joan,  her 
father  had  gone  up  hurriedly  from  Devonshire  to  London, 
to  attend  a  specially  summoned  Cabinet  Council.  This 
titbit  of  news  not  being  in  The  Times  yet,  was  savored 
and  turned  over  and  over  on  every  tongue,  and  so  Allegra 
was  forgotten,  if  not  forgiven.  For  although  Britain 
allows  of  two  sides  in  politics  in  time  of  peace,  in  war- 
time there  are  only  patriots  and  traitors. 

And  before  she  left  Rosmere  her  loose  principles  and 
Deldonian  quotations  shocked  the  County  at  the  Bachelors' 
Ball.  Young  squires,  who  had  incautiously  taken  two 
waltzes  on  the  strength  of  her  appearance,  knocked  breath- 
less by  her  earnest  conversation,  returned  for  their  second 
round  with  apprehension.  "  Don't  you  think  we're  all 
as  bad  as  Nero — fiddling  like  this?"  she  asked  one — to 
which  he  replied  vacuously :  "  But  we're  not  fiddling — 
it's  the  band."  And  her  supper  partner,  to  her  plaintive 
cry  (drowned  by  the  popping  of  champagne  corks),  "  We 
ought  not  to  be  feasting,  when  so  many  are  starving," 
replied  reassuringly :  "  Don't  you  hurry — let  'em  forage 
for  themselves.  Besides,  there's  a  little  table  quite  empty 
in  that  corner." 

The  Duke  had  a  way  of  evading  politics ;  he  simply  ex- 
isted ducally  and  said  nothing.  Sometimes  he  sat  on  the 
Bench,  and  sometimes  he  rode  over  his  broad  lands  with 
Minnie  or  a  bailiff ;  and  sometimes  he  retired  to  the  stables 
to  smoke,  the  Duchess  not  having  yet  tolerated  cigars  in 
the  house,  and  even  shooting-jackets  being  forbidden  at 
the  breakfast  table.  Indeed,  it  was  soon  borne  in  on  Alle- 
gra that  it  was  the  Duchess  who  wore  the  peer's  robes. 
Allegra  heard  her  consult  her  husband  about  something 
and  she  never  forgot  the  gentle  pathetic  humor  of  the 

136 


FEUDALISM 

Duke's  reply :  "  Do  as  you  like,  my  dear.  You  know  you 
will  do  as  you  like." 

Though  the  internal  life  of  Rosmere  really  went  very 
simply,  visitors  getting  the  plainest  of  breakfasts  and 
lunches,  and  the  hostess  inspecting  the  kitchen  with  the 
regular  irregularity  of  a  canny  housewife,  and  even 
intruding  on  the  butler's  brew-house,  yet  the  Duchess  saw 
to  it  that  the  magnificent  traditions  of  Rosmere  did  not 
get  moth-eaten.  It  was  the  Duchess — though  the  Duke 
was  beside  her — who  drove  to  the  local  races  in  a  chariot 
drawn  by  six  superb  horses,  with  a  dozen  tall  outriders 
in  powdered  curls  and  cocked  hats ;  the  Duchess  who  open- 
ed flower  and  vegetable  shows,  and  distributed  the  prizes ; 
the  Duchess  who  kept  up  the  mediaeval  custom — dating 
from  the  days  when  Rosmere  was  an  Abbey — of  passing 
a  loaf  of  bread  through  the  postern-gate  to  every  mendi- 
cant, and  who  rewarded  by  a  blue  swallow-tail  with  brass 
buttons  the  oldest  parishioner  who  had  brought  up  the 
largest  family  without  parish  relief;  the  Duchess  who  ex- 
acted some  quaint  annual  tribute  of  eggs  or  farthings  from 
every  parishioner  in  sign  of  feudal  homage,  and  duly  dis- 
tributed the  potatoes  for  which  an  ancestor  had  purchased 
a  right  of  way  from  the  village;  the  Duchess  who  rever- 
enced— as  a  pagan  wife  reverenced  her  husband's  gods — 
this  ancestor  and  all  the  other  ancestors  whose  hatchments 
and  memorials  made  of  the  village  church  a  shrine  of  the 
Dalesbury  blood,  rather  than  of  the  blood  of  Redemption. 
What  wonder  if  the  story  goes  that  when  the  parson,  in 
reading  the  Thanksgiving  Service  after  the  birth  of  Min- 
nie, said :  "  O  Lord,  save  this  woman  Thy  servant,"  the 
Clerk  responded :  "  Who  putteth  her  Grace's  trust  in 
Thee!" 

As  for  the  parson's  wife,  her  only  chance  was  when  the 
Duchess  went  to  her  other  seats  or  to  town.  But  there 
was  little  left  for  interference.  The  Duchess  had  already 
decided  how  the  schoolgirls  must  do  their  hair,  and  the 
limits  of  feathers  and  ribbon,  so  that  the  clerical  lady 

137 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

could  only  taste  the  sweets  of  empire  by  pouncing  upon 
culprits  who  had  divagated  from  the  sumptuary  laws 
of  Rome.  Not  that  it  was  her  desire  to  strike  out  for 
herself ;  her  whole  deportment  was  modelled  on  the  Duch- 
ess's; her  voice,  originally  sweet  and  caressing,  uncon- 
sciously imitated  the  harsh  note  of  the  Duchess's;  and 
instead  of  growing  like  her  husband,  as  is  the  wont  of  a 
dutiful  wife,  she  became  more  and  more  a  duplicate  of 
the  Duchess. 

This  grandmotherly  government — "  by  three  old  wom- 
en, including  the  clergyman,"  as  Lady  Minnie  irreverent- 
ly described  it  to  her  astonished  cousin — formed  the 
ground-work  of  Allegra's  Report.  "  There  are  two  dis- 
eases in  especial  against  which  the  peasant  has  to  be  pro- 
tected— Small-pox  and  Dissent,  and  the  latter  is  the  more 
dangerous.  It  is  the  beginning  of  Independence.  If  you 
dare  to  differ  from  the  Established  Church,  you  might 
slide  into  disrespect  of  the  Established  Order.  Gwenny 
was  right :  the  Devil  lays  his  traps  subtly.  To  counteract 
the  Devil,  the  Dissenter  is  deprived  of  doles  in  aid.  As 
Minnie  puts  it  somewhat  profanely,  the  Dissenter  gets 
no  blankets  in  this  world,  and  is  warned  he  will  need  none 
in  the  next!  I  spoke  to  one  named  William  Curve  who 
had  been  preaching  in  a  barn,  and  he  admitted  that  in- 
tolerance was  all  they  had  to  complain  of  here,  and  that  the 
rule  of  the  Duke  is  really  a  beneficent  autocracy — that  the 
Duke  has  made  good  roads  and  erected  way-side  fountains, 
but  that  in  some  villages  to  which  he  tramps  on  his  preach- 
ing tours — and  he  has  tramped  ten  thousand  miles  for 
Christ's  sake  he  tells  me — the  condition  of  the  peasants  is 
nearly  as  bad  as  in  France  before  the  Revolution.  Bar- 
ley -  meal  -  dumplings  are  a  staple  dish.  Very  often 
they  live  on  kettle-broth  (bread  soaked  in  hot  water)  and 
tea  made  with  burnt  crusts,  and  even  for  this  bread — with 
the  four-pound  loaf  at  tenpence — they  often  cannot  pay 
till  harvest  bounty.  He  himself  had  slaved  on  a  farm 
from  four  in  the  morning  till  ten  at  night  without  tasting 

13S 


FEUDALISM 

a  bit  of  bacon  except  on  Sundays.  As  for  fresh  meat, 
that  was  a  Christmas  dream.  Even  if  after  years  and 
years  you  scrape  together  enough  to  buy  a  patch  of  ground 
or  a  little  cottage,  nobody  will  sell  it  to  you.  And  the 
ivy-clad  cottages  with  climbing  roses  that  poets  rave  about 
— alas!  I  have  done  it  myself,  though  I  am  not  a  poet — 
are,  according  to  my  friend  William  Curve,  often  simply 
centres  of  pestilence,  physical  and  moral.  He  told  me 
that  thirteen  people  sometimes  slept  in  one  small  room, 
and  that  there  was  a  mort  (he  meant  a  heap — to  listen  to 
him  was  like  hearing  mother  read  Shakspere)  of  abomi- 
nations not  fit  for  a  young  lady's  ears.  This,  like  '  wait 
till  you're  older,'  is  one  of  the  expressions  that  annoy 
me  so  terribly.  As  if  I  did  not  need  to  know  everything. 
And  as  if  there  could  be  any  greater  abomination  than 
thirteen  people  in  one  bedroom.  I  know  how  it  frets  me 
even  to  share  my  room  with  Mabel,  and  how  satisfying 
is  the  sense  of  privacy  in  the  bedroom  in  which  I  am 
writing  now.  I  told  Minnie  about  it,  and  asked  her 
to  join  me  in  forming  an  organization  to  right  the  peas- 
ants' wrongs,  but  all  she  answered  was :  '  It  is  certainly 
unlucky  for  thirteen  people  to  sleep  in  a  room/  It  will 
certainly  be  unlucky  for  these  aristocrats — they  will  get 
themselves  guillotined — that  is  what  will  be  the  end  of  it 
all.  If  only  our  English  peasants  had  more  manhood. 
They  bow  and  smirk  and  swallow  insults  and  Charity 
soup,  and  suffer  the  social  order  as  piously  as  if  it  were 
the  will  of  God.  They  are  even  worse  Tories  than 
Minnie." 

But  Lady  Minnie's  character  continued  to  baffle  Alle- 
gra. Much  as  Allegra  had  come  to  disdain  her  own 
mother,  she  could  never  have  analyzed  her  to  Minnie 
as  candidly  as  Minnie  analyzed  her  Grace.  Perhaps  it 
was  because  Allegra  had  even  now  not  shaken  off  the 
purely  physical  fascination  of  her  mother's  fadeless 
beauty. 

"  The  trouble  with  mother  is  that  she  takes  herself  and 

139 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

her  position  so  seriously,"  said  Minnie,  as  she  copied  in 
pencil  the  engraving  of  "  Mona  Lisa  "  from  one  of  the 
Duke's  portfolios.  u  She  sees  herself  exactly  as  the  vil- 
lage sees  her.  Whereas  we  should  pray  for  perspective 
— not  to  see  ourselves  as  ithers  see  us." 

"  You  are  very  clever,"  said  Allegra  reflectively. 

"  I  wish  mother  could  hear  you  say  that.  She  would 
think  even  more  highly  of  you  than  she  does." 

"  Does  she  think  highly  of  me  ?"  inquired  Allegra  in 
pleased  surprise. 

"  Aren't  you  her  niece  ?  Whatever  is  hers  she  thinks 
highly  of — her  husband  and  her  daughter,  her  niece  and 
her  brother,  her  house  and  her  park,  yea  even  her  Church 
and  her  God.  She  feels  she  lives  the  best  life,  and  her 
last  breath  will  boast  that  she  is  dying  the  best  death,  and 
express  her  assurance  of  the  best  life  to  come." 

"  But  that's  a  very  enviable  frame  of  mind,"  said  Alle- 
gra, smiling.  "  And  some  mothers  might  be  the  better 
for  thinking  less  meanly  of  all  that  is  theirs." 

"  Yes,  if  she  kept  her  appreciation  for  home  consump- 
tion ;  if  she  wasn't  such  a  babbler." 

"  Well,  everybody  makes  allowance  for  a  mother's  eye." 

"  A  mother's  I  you  mean — with  a  large  capital.  It's 
just  an  extension  of  egotism.  She  actually  imagines  I 
think  as  she  does,  that  I  am  just  an  overflow  of  her  per- 
sonality. I've  long  given  up  the  attempt  to  persuade  her 
that  I  have  a  will  of  my  own.  At  first  I  used  to  argue — 
but  I  soon  made  the  discovery  that  it  was  more  profitable 
to  contradict  her  with  my  brain  than  with  my  tongue. 
What  a  blessing  we  have  got  a  secret  Council  Chamber 
behind  our  foreheads  that  nobody  can  penetrate !" 

And  she  sketched  in  Mona  Lisa's  unfathomable  smile. 

Allegra  smiled  her  sweet  transparent  smile :  "  I've  often 
wondered  what  lay  behind  the  foreheads  in  your  ancestral 
portrait-gallery.  If  the  painters  could  only  have  paint- 
ed that!" 

"  If  they  could  onlv  have  painted  the  foreheads!"  said 

140 


FEUDALISM 

Minnie.  "  Why,  our  gallery  is  as  bad  as  the  Royal 
Academy  in  London." 

"  You  ought  to  paint  the  present  generation,  then." 

"  Mother  wouldn't  endure  my  doing  any  real  work.  I 
wanted  to  live  in  Rome  and  study.  But  she  said  the 
Dalesburys  don't  paint,  they  are  painted.  That  is  her 
idea  of  aristocracy — to  be  a  model,  not  an  artist." 

Allegra  smiled  again :  "  My  brother  Tom  has  similar 
ideas,  that  it  is  nobler  to  be  a  butcher  than  a  statesman. 
I'm  so  glad,  Minnie,  you  don't  agree  with  your  mother. 
'  Never  forget,  Alligator,'  she  said  to  me  the  other  after- 
noon, when  I  drove  out  with  her  to  distribute  the  bottles  of 
tar-water  to  the  cottagers,  '  never  forget  that  you  belong 
to  the  Chosen  People.' ' 

"  Yes,  I  know.  She  talks  like  an  Anglo-Israelite.  But 
what  a  ridiculous  phrase — when  you  think  of  all  the  pros- 
elytes I" 

"  Proselytes  ?" 

"  Shopkeepers  and  brewers  who  have  become  touched 
with  the  true  faith  in  escutcheons  and  family  portraits, 
and  whose  blood,  I  presume,  turns  blue — a  sort  of  sacred 
mystery." 

"  You  must  have  a  drop  of  father's  blood,"  cried  Alle- 
gra excitedly. 

Mona  Lisa's  smile  became  more  mysterious  than  ever 
under  Minnie's  skilful  touch. 

"  I  only  trust  mother  didn't  make  you  drink  the  tar- 
water,"  she  replied  evasively. 

"  I — I  did  take  a  glass,"  Allegra  confessed  with  an 
involuntary  shudder. 

"  There !  That's  mother  all  over.  Because  it  does  her 
good — or  she  fancies  it  does — everybody  else  must  swal- 
low it." 

A  more  amusing  instance  of  the  Duchess's  "  extension 
of  egotism  "  was  forced  upon  Allegra's  observation  the 
very  next  time  she  accompanied  her  hostess  on  a  matri- 
archal round.  At  lunch  there  had  been  talk  of  the  by- 

141 


THE    MAKTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

election  that  was  temporarily  deposing  the  Novabarbese 
crisis,  and  in  which  the  Radical  candidate  was  a  blind 
man.  Despite  his  abhorrent  opinions,  the  Duchess  ad- 
mired his  pluck,  and  coming  upon  an  old  blind  carrier 
who  complained  that  his  master  had  withdrawn  him  from 
the  road,  "  though  many's  the  moonless  night  I've  druv 
'twixt  here  and  Midstoke,  before  the  Lord  blindfolded 
me,"  she  was  moved  to  tell  him  about  the  blind  politician. 

"  I  like  to  see  people  of  spirit,"  she  said,  as  he  stood 
bent  with  age,  affliction,  and  reverence  in  the  doorway 
of  his  step-daughter's  thatched  cottage.  "  Spirit  is  what 
I  have  tried  most  to  cultivate  in  the  parish.  You  know 
there  is  a  blind  gentleman — a  man  of  university  breed- 
in' — who  wishes  to  go  into  Parliament." 

"  Is  there,  yer  Grace  ?"  he  said  apathetically. 

"  Yes— isn't  it  splendid  ?" 

"  Ess,  yer  Grace." 

"  And  isn't  it  wonderful  that  in  all  ranks  of  life  the  Al- 
mighty should  send  the  same  affliction?" 

"  Ess,  yer  Grace."     He  shuffled  his  aged  limbs. 

"  The  same  misfortune  might  happen  even  to  me !" 

"  Nay,  nay,  yer  Grace,  I'll  never  live  to  see  that."  And 
he  shook  his  gray  head  incredulously. 

"  Well,  I  don't  suppose  it  will.  But  all  the  same,  isn't 
it  a  comfort  to  you  to  think  that  your  betters  have  to  suf- 
fer in  the  same  way  as  you  ?" 

"  Ess,  yer  Grace."  And  his  sightless  eyes  roved  hope- 
lessly up  and  down  the  landscape  they  had  so  long  pos- 
sessed. 

"  And  must  it  not  be  a  comfort  to  us  all,  Alligator,  to 
see  that  in  all  ranks  of  life  people  meet  fate  with  forti- 
tude?" 

"  Certainly,  aunt." 

"  And  so,  my  poor  fellow,  they  won't  allow  you  to  drive 
a  wagon  because  you  might  smash  it  up !" 

"  But  I  could  blow  my  horn,  yer  Grace,  and  the  old  'oss 
knows  every — " 

142 


FEUDALISM 

"  But  they  would  allow  the  blind  gentleman  to  guide 
the  country.  It's  perfectly  shameful." 

"  That's  what  I  told  master,  yer  Grace." 

"  But  then  all  the  Radicals  are  blind,  so  he  wouldn't 
stand  out." 

"  l^oa,  yer  Grace." 

At  dinner,  to  an  audience  of  peers  and  plenipotentiaries, 
Allegra  heard  the  Duchess  narrate  the  episode.  "  We 
have  a  poor  blind  wagoner  in  the  village.  He  takes  great 
interest  in  the  career  of  the  Radical  candidate — it  is  touch- 
in'  to  see  how  misfortunes  knit  the  world  together,  and  he 
said  how  wonderful  were  the  ways  of  Providence  in  ex- 
ernptin'  no  class  from  the  burden  of  affliction,  and  thus 
practically  equalizin'  all  ranks.  But  he  argued,  and  not 
unnaturally  to  my  thinkin',  that  if  a  blind  man  was  al- 
lowed to  guide  the  country,  why  should  he  not  be  permit- 
ted to  drive  his  wagon  ?" 

This  was  one  of  the  Duchess's  methods  of  self-delusion, 
Allegra  perceived:  first  to  suggest  appropriate  sentiments 
to  other  persons,  and  then  to  believe  that  the  other  persons 
had  originated  them. 

The  poor  Duke's  anxiety  to  become  Mayor  of  King's 
Paddock  (an  ancient  borough  half-way  betwixt  Rosmere 
and  Midstoke)  Allegra  now  saw  was  entirely  invented  by 
the  Duchess,  who  had  one  day  confided  to  her  how  this 
noble  patriot,  finding  the  old  Rosmere  influence  imperilled 
by  the  Radical  brimstone  belching  forth  from  Midstoke,  had 
resolved  to  save  the  town  by  heroic  measures.  Being  cut  off 
•by  his  rank  from  representing  King's  Paddock  in  Parlia- 
'ment,  he  had  taken  steps  to  become  its  mayor.  There  was 
bathos,  of  course,  in  this  descent  to  civic  heights,  but  the  mob 
must  be  kept  back  at  any  cost.  The  Duchess  sighed  as  she 
said  she  hoped  that  when  the  Tory  Party  did  come  back  to 
power,  they  would  not  forget  to  give  the  Duke  the  Garter. 

"  Why,  what  is  the  Garter,  Aunt  Emma  ?" 

The  Duchess  stared.  "  You  little  savage !  Wherever 
have  you  been  brought  up  ?" 

143 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Allegra  blushed.  "  Oh  yes,  I  remember.  Honi  soit 
qui  mal  y  pense."  But  she  merely  pictured  the  Duke 
with  something  in  gold  round  one  stocking  and  she  won- 
dered why  its  possession  should  gratify  the  owner  of  Ros- 
mere.  Even  when,  to  guard  against  any  return  of  the 
Duchess  to  the  subject,  she  had  studied  the  whole  glitter- 
ing panoply  of  collars  and  plumes  from  a  book  in  the 
library,  the  thought  remained  with  her  that  the  Garter 
had  been  invented  to  give  Dukes  something  to  desire. 


CHAPTER    XIV 
HOME    NEWS    AND    FOREIGN 

A  LL  this  while  The  Manor  House,  Devon,  and  Ros- 
-^*-  mere  had  been  exchanging  friendly  shots.  These 
paper  pellets  were  discharged  mainly  betwixt  Allegra  and 
.loan,  and  dealt  largely  in  feminine  trivialities  and  the 
relays  of  Allegra's  wardrobe. 

Remembering  the  weight  of  her  father's  post-bag,  Alle- 
gra modestly  refrained  from  adding  to  it.  She  inter- 
changed loving  messages  with  him  through  Joan.  Be- 
sides, he  would  get  the  Report  some  day.  Meantime  she 
received  with  a  superior  smile  Joan's  rapturous  report 
anent  the  rival  mansion. 

"  The  Manor  House  is  wonderful,  an  old,  old  house 
with  the  newest  comforts  and  an  Italian  garden  and  an 
English  wilderness  laid  out  by  Brunei.  Sitting  in  the 
great  hall  you  see  right  out  through  the  domed  con- 
servatory and  palm-house  on  to  the  blue  sea  dotted  with 
white  sails.  The  grand  staircase  is  in  oak  and  is  lighted 
by  a  beautiful  Gothic  window,  and  there  are  early  English 
mantel-pieces  in  the  hall  and  principal  rooms,  and  quaint 
tapestries  in  the  music-room — all  with  an  immemorial 
flavor,  not  patched  in  from  somewhere  else — and  the  draw- 
ing-room is  panelled  with  oil-paintings  by  foreign  masters 
and  Mabel  says  they  are  really  good,  especially  those  over 
the  mantel-pieces.  I  am  no  judge  of  that,  but  I  am  sure 
the  stables  (which  you  get  to  through  a  stone  archway) 
are  first  class  and  the  kennels  superb.  But  what  seemed 
most  unique  were  the  piggeries  and  pheasantries."  Here 
Joan  waxed  minutelv  enthusiastic.  "  Dear  old  Joan," 

145 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

thought  Allegra,  with  a  complex  contempt  for  Joan's 
pagan  enjoyment  of  grandeurs  which  were  really  second- 
rate.  "  She's  only  seen  our  little  place  at  Hazelhurst, 
so  The  Manor  House  seems  Aladdin's  Palace.  I  am  glad 
Aladdin  is  not  there.  She  might  be  tempted  to  do  some- 
thing desperate.  I  don't  suppose  Minnie  would  think 
much  of  those  paintings."  And  she  felt  an  art-critic  her- 
self, uplifted  on  Minnie's  scorn. 

From  Dulsie  there  came  only  one  communication,  the 
handwriting  exactly  like  Mabel's,  but  revealing  itself  as 
Dulsie's — the  moment  the  envelope  was  torn  open — by  the 
absence  of  italics  and  the  abundance  of  dashes  and  brack- 
ets. 

"  I  like  Devon — an  earthly  Paradise — surely  the  rich 
red  earth  from  which  Adam  was  made.  (Adam  means 
1  red  earth  '  a  Jewish  adorer  once  told  me. )  I  wish  I 
knew  the  secret  of  the  manufacture — but  it's  a  lost  art, 
like  Henri  Deux  pottery-ware — so  I  shall  never  possess 
my  ideal  adorer.  There  is  a  cat  here,  named  '  Larrups ' 
(which  is  Devon  for  '  ragged,'  I  learnt  from  a  local  young 
squire.)  He  is  the  pet  of  Mr.  Fitzwinter's  housekeeper 
and  a  maid  told  me  yesterday  she  liked  his  character,  be- 
cause he  wasn't  '  so  English  as  some.'  You  see  the  Devo- 
nians regard  themselves  as  far  above  Englishmen: — your 
Duchess  may  have  the  strawberry  leaves  but  we  have  the 
cream  of  the  cream — I'll  tell  the  Family  Skeleton  to  post 
you  some  (though  she  says  my  love  for  it  is  '  idolatrous  '). 
Silly  old  Skeleton!" 

"  Silly  old  Dulsie !"  Allegra  thought.  "  Will  she  never 
think  of  anything  but  being  adored?  Why  doesn't 
she  try  to  think  of  men  seriously,  of  being  a  man's 
helpmate?"  Turning  the  page  accidentally,  she  found 
a  postscript.  "  Since  writing  the  above  there  has  been 
a  deadly  set-to  between  mother  and  the  housekeeper  over 
this  very  '  Larrups  '  and  mother's  rat.  At  first  the  house- 
keeper promised  to  keep  her  feline  pet  in  the  kitchen, 
except  at  nights — but  it  got  into  the  drawing-room  and 

146 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

went  for  the  rat — every  bit  '  as  English  as  some.'  Mother 
sprang  to  the  rescue — and  then  rang  for  the  housekeeper. 
O  what  scenes !  We  were  all  glad  that  the  Brosers — 
father's  new  secretary  and  his  wife — provincials  awed  by 
our  fine  manners — had  driven  in  to  the  village  with  the 
telegrams.  Mother  was  for  packing  up  and  going  home 
on  the  nail — father  and  Gwenny  combined  could  not 
soothe  her — she  called  him  Mar-jor-i-mont  and  order- 
ed us  in  quite  Shaksperean  language  to  *  shake  the 
blood-stained  dust  of  The  Manor  House '  off  our 
Balmoral  boots — but  Joan  pointed  out  that  the  week's 
washing  hadn't  come  back  yet — so  mother  agreed  to 
wait  for  that — and  now  she's  as  merry  as  Christmas, 
with  the  beastly  rat  on  her  shoulder.  The  moral  of  it  all  is 
that  cats  should  be  converted  to  vegetarianism,  and  their 
fondness  for  Devonshire  cream  no  longer  discouraged." 

"  I  should  draw  a  very  different  moral,"  thought  Alle- 
gra  severely.  "  And  this  in  the  middle  of  a  political 
crisis,  with  England's  future  turning  on  whether  father 
could  keep  his  head  cool !" 

In  truth,  it  was  very  soon  after  this  that  she  got  from 
Joan  the  news  of  her  father's  summons  to  a  Cabinet 
Council.  They  had  also  heard  from  Mr.  Fitzwiriter, 
half  on  his  way  to  Novabarba  with  his  sister  in  his  own 
yacht.  He  hoped  his  housekeeper  had  made  them  com- 
fortable. 

"  Comfortable !"  commented  Joan  angrily.  "  Yes — 
if  she  had  only  not  kept  an  odious  cat  which  made  a  spring 
at  mother's  odious  rat.  A  pity  they  didn't  kill  each 
other!"  Here  followed  Joan's  superfluous  account  of 
the  episode,  skipping  only  her  own  part  as  dea  ex  machind. 
"  Isn't  it  disgusting  how  women  make  pets  of  animals, 
from  pug-dogs  to  husbands?  I  suspect  you'll  be  keeping 
a  husband  soon,  having  rejected  the  husband  who  wished 
to  keep  you.  By-the-way,  Reform  doesn't  appear  to 
miss  you  much,  nor  should  we  miss  her,  for  the  stables 
are  almost  as  full  as  the  piggeries.  And  talking  of  pig- 

147 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

geries  reminds  me  to  tell  you  of  the  new  '  home  secretary  ' 
father  picked  up  and  installed  here — a  Mr.  Broser,  who 
has  brought  about  the  impossible,  for  he  has  made  us 
all  wish  the  Honorable  Andrew  had  not  taken  a  back 
seat.  Not  that  he  doesn't  try  to  be  entertaining,  for  he 
is  full  of  quips  and  cranks,  but,  as  Dulsie  says, 
we  now  realize  the  difference  between  the  Honorable 
Andrew  and  a  Merry  Andrew.  Besides  our  gentle 
kinsman  (if  father's  nephew's  brother-in-law  can  be 
called  a  kinsman)  has  no  consort,  whereas  Mr.  Broser 
means  likewise  Mrs.  Broser,  a  lady  who  seems  to 
have  sprung  from  a  beastly  rich  Midstoke  family  with 
iron-works  and  things,  but  to  be  pathetically  aware  that 
she's  not  in  it  with  us  for  breeding.  This  at  least  gives 
her  better  manners  than  her  lord  and  master,  who  cer- 
tainly fancies  himself  the  fine  gentleman.  Poor  little 
woman !  I  never  knew  any  one  wear  such  a  large  crino- 
line and  yet  take  up  so  little  room.  You  almost  forgive 
her  for  dressing  like  a  housemaid  on  her  Sunday  out. 
Her  reading  seems  to  comprise  only  a  few  novels  and  ser- 
mons— Jim,  who  can  hardly  bring  himself  to  be  civil  to 
the  man,  declares  her  husband  hasn't  read  as  much,  but 
I  must  admit  the  male  Broser  is  very  smart  in  catching 
up  things  and  of  course  he  can  see  a  joke,  whereas  Mrs. 
B.  just  gawks  at  you  blankly  with  her  watery  blue  eyes. 
But,  as  Dulsie  says,  it's  no  use  casting  pearls  before  pig- 
iron.  Mr.  Broser  is  fearfully  polite  to  all  of  us  girls,  but 
Dulsie  from  the  depths  of  her  experience  of  mankind  says 
that  this  is  only  French  polish,  concealing  a  stern  contempt 
for  our  sex.  Certainly  he  has  a  right  to  his  opinion,  judg- 
ing by  Mrs.  Broser,  who  simply  makes  herself  a  door-mat 
for  him,  though  I  am  sure  she  brought  him  a  considerable 
dowry.  We  all  told  father  he  ought  to  get  a  young  man 
from  his  Department  or  somebody  of  position,  instead  of 
this  ignoramus,  some  younger  son,  like  Lord  Arthur 
Pangthorne,  who  says  he'd  be  awfully  glad  of  the  chance 
of  a  career.  He  was  here  the  other  day — it  seems  he  met 

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HOME  NEWS  AND   FOREIGN 

Mabel  and  Dulsie  at  Cambridge,  and  his  people  live  near 
Torquay. ..." 

Allegra's  reply  shot  was  red-hot  "Mrs.  Broser  is  per- 
fectly right  to  make  herself  the  door-mat.  Would  you 
have  her  make  herself  the  hammer  and  tongs,  like  mother  ? 
If  she  makes  herself  a  door-mat  for  him,  remember  he 
makes  himself  a  door-mat  for  father.  Both  devotions 
do  honor  to  the  devotees.  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  Mr. 
Broser's  personal  acquaintance  but  I  saw  and  heard  him, 
and  although  the  world  knows  little  of  him  yet,  he  is 
destined  to  do  great  things  for  it,  to  sweep  away  Feudalism 
and  build  up  the  more  righteous  society  of  the  future. 
Your  self  -  consciousness  of  your  good  breeding  seems 
to  me  to  hold  more  vulgarity  than  Mrs.  Broser's  con- 
sciousness of  her  bad  breeding.  It  is  not  for  you  who 
meditate  marrying  piggeries  and  pheasantries  to  sneer 
at  her  devotion  to  a  husband  to  whom  she  owes  nothing 
but  the  honor  of  being  his  wife.  The  manners  of  Masani- 
ello  were  not  polished,  and  I  have  just  been  reading  in 
that  divine  Mr.  Carlyle  all  about  Cromwell  and  his  muddy 
top-boots.  Yet  those  top-boots  kicked  all  the  curled  and 
pomaded  cavaliers.  '  A  rugged  Orson  rending  his  rough 
way.'  The  Sham  Hero  is  for  the  Valet  World." 

Joan  did  not  answer  this.  The  next  pellet  from  The 
Manor  House  was  fired  by  Mabel  a  week  later. 

"  Just  a  line,  dearest  Ally,  to  tell  you  I  am  engaged.  It 
isn't  my  fault,  I'm  sure,  for  Dulsie  gave  him  our  address, 
and  I  never  dreamed  it  was  poor  little  me  he  was  after. 
Everybody  is  delighted,  except  Jim,  who  says  nothing, 
arid  Joan  who  says  too  much.  Of  course  father  doesn't 
know  yet ;  he  went  up  to  a  Cabinet  Council,  and  now  tele- 
graphs this  Xovabarbese  business  is  so  troublesome  he  will 
remain  in  town  till  Parliament  meets,  so  the  bourgeois 
Brosers  have  gone  up  to  keep  him  company  (every  sorrow 
has  its  compensations,  you  see).  But  I  expect  as  mother 
is  satisfied,  father  will  give  in.  I  really  did  fear  she 
would  join  that  chit  of  a  Joan  in  objecting  to  a  younger 

149 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

son,  but  Dulsie  declares  mother  is  jealous  of  us  all  and 
will  only  be  glad  when  she  is  left  alone  with  father  and 
her  rat.  This  is  a  hint  for  you  to  hurry  up — mother  told 
Gwenny  she  expected  any  moment  to  hear  of  your  engage- 
ment to  a  belted  earl.  I  wish  to  goodness  Arthur  was  an 
earl.  It  is  terrible,  this  law  of  primogeniture.  I  never 
realized  before  the  injustice  of  it.  Eclipse  first,  and  the 
rest  nowhere.  Mr.  Broser  was  saying  once  at  table  that 
if  ever  he  gets  into  Parliament,  he  will  sweep  away  the 
whole  system.  I  laughed  at  him  then,  but  now  I  see 
he  was  right.  Arthur,  too,  would  like  to  get  into  Parlia- 
ment, because  then  he  says  the  Whips  will  give  him  some 
post  and  we  can  marry  on  it.  Arthur's  people  are  all 
Tories  of  course,  but  he  thinks  it  best  to  go  in  as  a  Radical, 
because  father's  a  Radical  and  the  Tories  are  all  out  of 
it,  just  now.  He  says  he  expects  poor  people  will  like 
to  be  represented  by  a  lord.  Joan,  who  is  as  nasty  as  she 
can  well  be,  tries  to  dishearten  us  by  saying  she's  certain 
father's  already  pledged  all  his  influence  to  Mr.  Broser, 
but  surely  they  need  not  dash." 

Clash?  Allegra  paused  to  laugh  sardonically  to  her- 
self. Clash  ?  This  jejune  lordling  and  that  Viking  of 
the  platform!  She  pictured  a  Midstoke  steam-hammer 
clashing  with  a  china  doll.  And  then  the  impudence  of 
the  poppet's  Radicalism.  No,  no,  my  fine  fellow,  the 
People  is  not  such  a  simpleton  as  you  think !  She  could 
hardly  bear  to  read  further  in  this  foolish  feminine  epistle, 
— why  was  there  no  W.  P.  B.  in  the  ducal  dining-room? 
she  thought — but  she  went  through  it  dutifully  to  the 
last  foolish  feminine  line.  "  Write  to  me  at  once  and 
wish  me  happiness  for  he  is  a  handsome  boy." 

"  And  hasn't  even  told  me  who  he  is !"  she  thought, 
crumpling  up  the  letter  disdainfully.  "  If  Joan  hadn't 
happened  to  mention  Lord  Arthur  Pangthorne,  I  should 
have  been  all  in  the  dark.  Mabel  can't  realize  that  what 
bulks  so  largely  in  her  mind  doesn't  exist  at  all  in  mine. 
.  . .  Oh,  what  feather-headed  creatures  women  are — they 

150 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

don't  need  to  peacock  out  their  heads  with  feathers  from 
poor  slaughtered  birds  to  show  it.  A  handsome  boy! 
Give  me  an  ugly  man!  Well  may  Mr.  Broser  despise 
our  sex.  Never  thought  of  the  injustice  of  primogeniture 
before,  didn't  she  ?  Not  till  it  touched  herself !  That  is 
just  like  women — no  sense  of  great  principles,  only  of 
little  personalities.  Oh,  to  sink  one's  self,  to  serve,  to 
minister,  to  be  caught  up  into  the  splendor  of  a  great 
life!" 

"  Aren't  you  goin'  to  take  any  breakfast,  Alligator  ?" 
the  Duchess  interrupted. 

Allegra  wandered  to  the  sideboard  and  helped  herself 
to  she  knew  not  what. 

"  You  look  hipped,  my  dear.  I  hope  there's  no  bad 
news  from  home." 

"  There  is  rather.  But — but  I  think  it's  private  just 
yet." 

"  I  should  have  thought  the  bad  news  from  abroad  was 
enough  for  anybody!"  said  the  Duchess  in  an  aggrieved 
tone. 

Minnie's  coffee  seemed  to  gurgle  in  her  throat. 

"  In  these  dark  days  we  must  sink  our  private  griefs 
in  the  degeneration  of  England,"  pursued  the  Duchess, 
buttering  her  toast  carefully.  "  The  language  these  filthy 
Novabarbese  dare  to  use  towards  our  envoys!  O  Dales- 
bury,  if  I  were  in  the  Cabinet !" 

Colonel  Orr-Stenton,  the  only  guest  down,  smiled,  show- 
ing his  handsome  teeth.  "  I  wish  you  were,  we'd  see 
a  bit  more  service." 

"  You  really  would  like  to  fight,  Colonel  Orr-Stenton  ?" 
Allegra  inquired  in  astonishment.  The  good-looking 
Colonel  had  commended  himself  to  her  breast  as  an  excep- 
tion to  country-house  manhood.  His  lovable  nature,  his 
soft  voice  and  kindly  manners  that  held  no  hint  of  even 
the  mildest  flirtation,  his  quiet  teetotalism  in  a  world  in 
which  old  port  was  handled  with  almost  ritual  reverence, 
and  above  all  his  fondness  for  literature  and  his  unassum- 

151 


ing  Christian  piety,  had  at  moments  made  Allegra  regret 
that  the  world's  state  should  make  Broser's,  and  not  his, 
the  highest  type  of  modern  manhood.  Broser's  strong 
red  face,  the  veins  on  the  temple  swelling  with  righteous 
passion,  Broser's  massive  voice,  these  alas !  were  needed : 
not  a  cheerful  placidity  of  fine-cut  feature,  a  caressing 
utterance  of  beautiful  quotations. 

"  Would  I  like  to  fight,  Miss  Marshmont !  Why,  what 
else  am  I  for  ?" 

"  You  are  just  a  watch-dog." 

He  bowed  laughingly.  "  Thank  you.  But  it's  rather 
dull  without  an  occasional  burglar." 

"  But  the  burglar  occasionally  destroys  the  dog."  She 
had  a  horrid  vision  of  this  charming  gentleman  mutilated 
like  the  moths. 

"  That  is  all  in  the  day's  work — or  should  I  say  the 

t/  «/ 

night's  work  ?" 

"  Besides,  there's  promotion,"  put  in  the  Duke  from  the 
husky  depths  of  his  beard. 

"  But  surely  you  wouldn't  want  to  see  England  at  war 
just  to  get  a  chance  of  promotion  ?" 

"  I  don't  say  I  would.  But  I'd  like  my  chance  all  the 
same." 

"  There,  aunt !  Didn't  I  tell  you  of  the  danger  of  a 
standing  army?  It  sees  things  topsy-turvy.  The  dog — 
to  get  his  bite — or  his  rewarding  biscuit — would  rather 
see  his  master's  house  attacked !" 

"  It's  you  who  see  things  topsy-turvy,  Alligator.  I'm 
surprised  at  your  impoliteness.  I  shall  have  to  give  you 
the  paper  on  politeness  which  I  read  to  the  Young  Wom- 
en's Christian  Association  at  King's  Paddock." 

"  You  really  ought  to  read  it,  Allegra,"  said  Minnie 
suavely,  "  especially  the  warning  against  rebuking  your 
friends  in  public." 

"  Such  as  callin*  gentlemen  house-dogs,"  said  the  Duch- 
ess, highly  pleased. 

"  Yes,"  said  Minnie.  "  As  if  a  soldier  waited  for  a 

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HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

bite — like  an  angler !  If  you  had  called  him  a  fox-hound 
or  a  harrier  or  a  greyhound  or  a  boarhound— 

"  A  blood-hound,  then,"  said  Allegra  viciously.  "  All 
the  same,  Colonel  Orr-Stenton,  I  hope  the  Government 
will  stand  out  against  this  popular  outcry,  and  that  you 
will  never  taste  blood." 

"  Alligator,  you  forget  yourself.  Colonel  Orr-Stenton 
won  the  Victoria  Cross  before  you  were  born." 

"  Oh,  please,  please,"  he  said,  laughing  and  blushing 
quite  like  Allegra.  "  Don't  give  away  my  age." 

"  He  has  put  down  insurrections  in  all  parts  of  the 
world.  With  his  own  hand  he  killed  the  notorious  Yost 
Ali." 

u  Oh,  please,  please,  madam,"  interrupted  the  Colonel 
in  consternation.  "  Kever  rebuke  your  friends  in  public 
— remember  your  own  rede." 

Allegra  gazed  at  the  Colonel  in  horror.  That  white 
hand  elegantly  manipulating  a  fish-fork  had  stabbed  a 
mighty  chief  fighting  for  his  father-land !  For  a  moment 
she  had  a  sickening  sense  of  breakfasting  literally  with  a 
butcher,  cleaned  up  after  the  shambles.  Then  this  gave 
way  to  a  remorseful  remembrance  of  his  bravery  and 
modesty.  Why  had  he  been  so  reticent  of  all  these  mar- 
vellous adventures?  And  how  was  he  able  to  split  his 
conscience  and  his  being  thus  in  twain,  and  be  a  cherub  at 
home  and  a  demon  in  the  field  'I  Was  he  made  in  two  pieces 
like  his  name?  And  how  stupid  she  had  been!  Almost 
as  stupid  as  when  she  had  been  writing  her  poem  on 
*"  Fame."  Soldier  after  soldier  she  had  met  at  Rosmere,  and 
yet  never  had  she  seen  the  blood  on  their  hands.  Their 
"  majors  "  and  "  colonels  "  had  seemed  no  more  vitally 
related  to  their  personality  than  the  "  Lords  "  and  "  Sirs  " 
of  the  others :  handles  to  names,  not  to  knives.  And  again 
a  veil  seemed  to  fall  from  her  eyes — disclosing  she  scarce 
knew  what,  save  that  it  was  somehow  another  revelation 
of  the  complex  and  ruthless  forces  of  life. 

Immediately  after  lunch  next  day — cheered  by  a  blue 

153 


sky  after  a  rainy  morning — the  Duchess  despatched  a  tele- 
gram to  a  lawyer  and  drove  out  with  Allegra  in  an  open 
carriage  to  inspect  Ethelstan  Hall,  eleven  miles  away,  just 
outside  King's  Paddock.  She  explained  that  the  Duke 
was  thinking  of  buying  the  place,  as  it  would  conduce 
to  his  mayoral  popularity  to  have  a  local  seat.  This,  the 
only  worthy  residence,  had  been  in  the  hands  of  one  family 
from  Anglo-Saxon  times — a  record  probably  unequalled 
— but  just  this  year,  as  if  under  providential  influence, 
the  only  surviving  representative  had  put  it  on  the  market. 

The  carriage  road  skirted  a  rising  rolling  moorland,  sil- 
vered here  and  there  with  the  living  sparkle  of  cascades. 
An  air,  Alpine  in  its  exhilaration,  blew  across  the  craggy 
loneliness.  They  passed  some  great  red  houses. 

"  Hydropathic  establishments !"  the  Duchess  explained 
with  a  shudder.  "  Horrible  places  in  which  people  play  at 
bein*  ill.  Isn't  it  wonderful  what  things  people,  espe- 
cially women,  can  persuade  themselves  into  believin'  ? 
I  had  a  sentimental  German  governess  who  confided  her 
love-affairs  to  me.  f  Ach,  Fraulein  Marjorimont,'  she 
would  say,  f  it  ees  terrible,  how  many  hearts  zat  I  must 
break.'  It  was  terrible,  and  I  longed  to  tell  her  what 
a  fool  she  was,  but  that  would  have  put  an  end  to  these 
interruptions  of  the  lesson.  But  one  day  it  struck  me  I 
could  just  say  in  my  brain :  '  Fraulein  Mahlberg,  you  are 
a  nincompoop.'  And  I  used  to  say  it  over  and  over,  smil- 
ing amiably  with  my  outside.  It  was  a  wonderful  relief. 
Isn't  it  lucky  one  can  say  things  like  that  in  one's  brain  ? 
Drive  slowly,  Tenby,  as  you  pass  the  cemetery.  I  want 
to  show  Miss  Alligator  the  Runic  stones." 

But  Allegra  gazed  at  the  Runic  stones  with  her  eyes 
only :  she  was  saying  something  "  in  her  brain."  She  re- 
membered how  Minnie,  too,  had  discovered  the  advantages 
of  this  "  secret  council-chamber  "  which  enabled  her  to 
contradict  her  mother  peacefully,  and  the  suggestion  of 
heredity  was  startling. 

"  Though  we  beat  at  our  bars  so  wildly,  are  we  jnst 

154 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

the  parent  birds  over  again  ?"  thought  Allegra.  "  Shall 
I,  too,  only  make  the  '  discoveries  '  which  the  dead  who 
sleep  herahave  made  ?  Or  is  it  just  the  hypocrisy  of  our 
common  womanhood — to  say  things  '  in  one's  brain  '  ?" 

At  the  lodge  of  Ethelstan  Hall  they  found  a  wizened 
gentleman  with  mutton-chop  whiskers  who  saluted  them 
respectfully,  and  whose  professional  parchment  face 
introduced  him  as  Mr.  Sadler,  the  lawyer.  He  walked 
beside  the  carriage  as  it  went  crunching  along  the  gravel 
drive.  Soon  an  ascending  path  to  the  right,  with  the 
dull  gleam  of  a  statue  through  the  greenery,  caught  the 
Duchess's  eye. 

"  What's  that  ?"  she  asked. 

"  They  call  that  Apostles'  Avenue,  your  Grace.  It  leads 
to  a  Calvary." 

"  How  curious !     Can  we  go  up  there  ?" 

The  lawyer  hemmed.  "  I  don't  know  if  there's  room  for 
the  horses,  your  Grace,  and  the  grass  is  wet  after  the  rain." 

"  We  can  do  it,  your  Grace,"  said  Tenby. 

The  carriage  backed  and  the  horses  turned,  their  hoofs 
falling  muted  on  the  thick  coating  of  russet  leaves  that 
seemed  a  mournful  symbol  of  more  than  the  year's  decay. 
Tall  neglected  trees  hugged  one  another  with  manifold 
skeleton  arms,  and  the  beautiful,  keen,  blue  day  suddenly 
changed  into  a  dank  gloom.  On  either  side  they  passed 
moss-grown  mouldering  stone  figures,  chipped  and  worn, 
which  they  surmised  were  the  Apostles. 

"  Catholic  family,  your  Grace,"  explained  the  lawyer 
apologetically,  as  he  scraped  along  betwixt  the  wheels 
and  the  trees. 

The  Duchess  sniffed.  "  But  I  thought  the  Ethelstans 
were  pure  Anglo-Saxons." 

"  Certainly,  your  Grace.  But  converted  to  Christian- 
ity. And  Catholicism  was — your  Grace  will  remember 
— the  original  form." 

"  But  England  threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Scarlet  Wom- 
an!" 

155 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  The  Ethelstans  kept  the  faith." 

"  They  seem  to  have  neglected  everything  else,"  said 
the  Duchess  with  asperity.  "  I  never  saw  a  place  so 
ruined.  "  What's  that  lurkin'  in  the  grass  yonder?  The 
Virgin  Mary,  I  dare  say." 

"  !N"o,  your  Grace ;  that's  a  tomb.  The  Ethelstans  had 
themselves  buried  here.  We  are  approaching  the  chapel." 

"  And  do  the  Ethelstans  expect  me  to  buy  their  an- 
cestors ?" 

"  No,  your  Grace,"  replied  Mr.  Sadler  simply.  "  You 
may  cart  them  away." 

"  Cart  them  away !"  screamed  the  Duchess. 

"  Those  are  my  instructions,"  he  replied  unmoved.  "  I 
asked  young  Mr.  Ethelstan  just  before  he  left  for  Paris, 
if  he  made  a  point  of  their  retention,  and  he  said,  '  No ; 
they  can  cart  'em  away !' ' 

"  And  that's  your  modern  young  man !"  exclaimed  the 
Duchess  bitterly.  "  From  immemorial  ages,  even  before 
the  Conquest,  the  family  has  lived  here  and  died  here. 
And  now  this  young  gentleman  deserts  the  historic  nest, 
and  is  off  to  Paris  to  drink  absinthe  on  the  boulevards  with 
a  demoiselle !  And  any  bumpkin  with  money  may  play 
bowls  with  the  bones  of  his  ancestors!  I  hope  you  see 
the  disgrace  of  it,  Alligator." 

"  I  do  indeed,  aunt."  And  Allegra  for  once  felt  herself 
in  sympathy  with  the  Duchess. 

The  carriage  came  to  a  forced  stop  at  the  chapel  —  a 
mildewed  stone  building,  over  the  portal  of  which  a  dilapi- 
dated Christ  hung  on  a  moss-grown  cross.  There  was  an 
unhomely  look  about  the  Christ,  forlorn  and  deserted  in 
a  world  which  had  once  been  His. 

And  yet  as  Allegra's  eye  turned  from  the  beautiful 
horses,  and  the  groom  with  his  smart  cockade,  and  the 
speckless  coachman,  and  the  shining  equipage,  and  the 
gayly  dressed  Duchess,  to  that  crumbling  figure  of  re- 
proach, she  wondered  if  perhaps  He  had  not  been  even 
more  bitterly  despised  and  rejected  of  men  in  the  hour 

156 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

when  the  Ethelstans  had  come  to  bend  the  knee  to  Him. 
And  a  sudden  nausea  seized  her  for  beautiful  Rosmere 
and  all  its  pagan  pomp.  What  did  it  mean,  the  civiliza- 
tion nominally  founded  on  this  crucified  figure  ? 

"  Sell  that  thou  hast  and  follow  Me !" 

And  she  recalled  the  Duke  stepping  from  his  curtained 
state-pew  to  read  the  lessons  for  the  day,  and  imperturb- 
ably  declaring  himself  the  equal  of  the  smock-frocked 
laborer,  who  was  not  even  permitted  to  approach  the  Com- 
munion rails  till  the  farmers  and  shopkeepers  had  risen 
from  their  knees. 

"  Ugh !"  said  the  Duchess.  "  What  a  damp  cold  place ! 
We  won't  go  in  there!  I  hope  the  house  is  more  cheer- 
ful." 

"  It's  not  been  so  long  unused,"  said  Mr.  Sadler  with 
his  prosaic  simplicity. 

But  now  a  difficulty  arose.  There  was  no  room  to 
turn  round.  Mr.  Sadler's  first  instinct  had  been  sound. 
The  horses  had  to  be  backed  all  down  Apostles'  Avenue. 
And  Allegra,  with  that  passion  for  symbol  which  had 
found  support  in  carven  eagles,  felt  one  could  not  turn 
one's  back  on  the  Christ. 

At  Rosmere,  Minnie  came  down  the  drive  to  meet  the 
returning  carriage.  For  the  first  time  Allegra  saw  her 
excited. 

"  War  is  declared !  Colonel  Orr-Stenton  has  gone  up 
to  town !" 

"  Thank  Heaven !"  cried  the  Duchess. 

"  Oh,  mother !"  And  Minnie  laughed,  for  all  her  ex- 
citement, and  Allegra  joined  in,  though  she  had  turned 
pale. 

"  It's  no  laughin'  matter,  you  silly  creatures.  But 
how  do  you  know,  Minnie  ?" 

"  He  had  a  telegram  from  headquarters." 

"  Then  my  father  must  have  resigned !"  said  Allegra, 
growing  whiter. 

"  What !"  shrieked  the  Duchess.  "  Who  told  you  that  ?" 

157 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Nobody :  my  own  heart.  He  objects  to  war ;  he  cannot 
possibly  countenance — ' 

"  Nonsense — he  will  ruin  himself.  I  never  remember 
the  country  so  unanimous." 

"  Let  him  ruin  himself.  Christ  said,  '  Sell  that  thou 
hast  and  follow  me.' ' 

"  Yes,  but  not  sell  your  country,"  put  in  Minnie 
quietly. 

"  You,  too,  Minnie !"  And  Allegra  burst  into  tears 
and  ran  up  to  her  room  and  locked  the  door — like  her 
mother. 

The  last  post  brought  a  letter  from  Joan,  who  evidently 
had  not  yet  heard  the  great  news.  "  You  don't  deserve  I 
should  write,  but  this  is  to  tell  you  not  to  write  any  more 

here.  We  are  going  home.  Larrups  has  eaten  mother's  rat. 
******* 

These  asterisks  are  hysterics.  The  bloody  halls  of  Devon 
&c.  But  I  believe  she  is  not  sorry  for  an  excuse  to  get 
back  to  father.  A  much  more  serious  catastrophe — 
Mabel's  engagement  to  a  penniless,  brainless  boy — mother 
met  with  resignation.  I  expect  she's  as  tickled  at  being 
mother-in-law  to  a  lord,  as  Mabel  is  to  become  Lady 
Arthur.  A  nice  Lady  Arthur — without  a  farthing  for 
a  trousseau.  Father  confessed  to  me  that  his  income  had 
diminished  almost  in  proportion  as  his  family  had  in- 
creased. '  But  you  get  a  big  salary  from  the  Govern- 
ment, don't  you  ?'  I  asked.  '  I  don't  know  what  we  should 
do  without  it,'  he  said,  instead  of  answering.  So  if  the 
Tories  ever  come  into  power  again,  the  look-out  will  be 
cheerful — with  a  pauper  lord  on  our  hands,  too.  Poor 
father !  he  really  ought  to  have  had  a  wife  like  me.  I 
think  I  shall  have  to  take  our  finances  seriously  in  hand. 
Mother  who  seems  disappointed  at  your  failure  to  capture 
a  coronet  wants  to  know  when  you  are  coming  home. 
Never,  if  I  were  you.  Home,  sweet  Home.  And  now  Mr. 
Broser  will  be  added !  Heigh  ho !" 

Allegra,  her  soul  already  resolved  to  shake  off  TJosmere, 

158 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

slept  little  that  night.  Had  her  father  withheld  his  resig- 
nation after  all  ?  Did  sordid  yet  unselfish  money  cares 
stifle  the  diviner  impulse  ?  "  Father  which  art  in  heav- 
en," she  prayed,  "  strengthen  my  father  on  earth  to  choose 
the  highest."  Her  mind  tossed  and  turned  like  her  body, 
revolving  feverish  plans  for  earning  her  living.  She  would 
go  so  far  as  to  submit  her  poems  to  Mr.  Fitzwinter.  She 
would  get  up  early  and  toil  at  anything,  everything.  And 
so  at  last  she  tossed  herself  to  sleep,  and  got  up  late. 

The  Duchess  looked  black — The  Times  in  her  hand. 

"  It's  all  over  with  your  father !" 

"  Thank  God!"  said  Allegra. 

"  Actum  est  de  Balbo,"  murmured  the  Duke.  "  Noth- 
ing, Emma — only  a  classical  reminiscence." 

"  Please,  please,  aunt,  let  me  see  the  paper." 

The  Duchess  regarded  her  sternly,  and  then  read  out: 
"  The  infelicitous  experiment  of  including  an  extremist 
in  the  Ministry  has  had  the  results  we  ventured  to  predict. 
Always  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  a  patient  Cabinet,  Mr. 
Marshmont  has  done  his  colleagues  a  favor  by  withdraw- 
ing himself.  Her  Majesty's  Government  has  not  rushed 
into  war.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  almost  imperilled  Eng- 
land's prestige  by  its  reluctance  to  take  the  decisive  step 
before  every  measure  of  conciliation  had  proved  futile. 
Mr.  Marshmont's  conscientious  doubts  of  the  justness  of 
this  war  will  go  for  nothing,  because  the  public  clearly 
understands  that  his  conscience  is  not  against  this  war, 
but  against  any  war.  It  is  curious  that  a  politician,  so 
sober  in  his  commercial  judgments,  should  so  miscalculate 
the  forces  of  history.  Perhaps  it  is  because  he  has  his  eye 
too  much  on  our  commercial  developments  to  perceive  the 
other  and  more  brilliant  threads  that  make  up  the  mighty 
fabric  of  a  nation's  life.  We  cannot  always  be  consider- 
ing our  pocket.  Mr.  Marshmont  would  doubtless  prove 
a  valuable  Minister  in  the  Millennium.  Meantime  a 
United  Cabinet  will  have  the  support  of  a  unanimous 
nation." 

159 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Don't  cry,  my  child,"  said  the  Duke,  perceiving  the  big 
round  drops  beginning  to  fall.  "  You'll  spoil  your  pretty 
eyes."  And  he  moved  towards  her  and  took  her  hand. 

"  Let  her  cry,"  said  the  Duchess.  "  I  could  cry  myself 
over  Tom's  silliness." 

Allegra  raised  a  tear-stained  face.  "  I  am  crying  for 
joy,"  she  said  proudly. 

"  Alligator's  tears,"  murmured  Minnie. 

"  We  cannot  always  be  considering  our  pocket — that's 
the  only  true  thing  in  what  your  wretched  organ  of  the 
Classes  says.  But  oh,  how  ironical  to  say  it !  I  must 
go  home  to  my  father  now,  Aunt  Emma." 

"  Tut,  tut !  you're  not  the  Prodigal  Daughter,  if  he's 
the  Prodigal  Son." 

"  Your  father  won't  be  at  home,  my  dear,"  the  Duke 
interposed.  "  He  is  going  to  address  his  constituents, 
the  paper  says.  Though  if  I  were  he,  I'd  keep  my 
thunder  till  Parliament  meets." 

"  He'll  have  plenty  left  for  Parliament,"  said  Allegra 
pugnaciously,  as  she  withdrew  her  hand  from  the  Duke's. 
"  Do  you  know  what  time  the  next  train  goes  ?" 

"  The  next  train  may  go,  Alligator,  but  you'll  stay  here. 
The  idea  of  snivellin'  round  your  father!  I've  told  you 
you  shall  go  up  to  London  with  us,  when  we  pass  through 
town,  as  soon  as  this  Mayor  business  is  over." 

"  But  my  people  are  returning  at  once.  Oh,  it  is  ter- 
rible to  think  of  my  father  being  worried  by  their  return 
now." 

"  Perhaps  that  is  why  he  is  going  to  address  his  con- 
stituents," suggested  Minnie. 

"  My  mother  will  need  me  anyhow." 

"  What,  with  a  litter  of  gals  treadin'  on  one  another's 
trains !" 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  want  to  keep  me,"  Allegra 
broke  out  desperately.  "  You  all  hate  me !" 

"  Oh,  my  child !"  said  the  Duke  gently,  "  I'm  in  love 
with  you." 

160 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

The  Duchess  deliberately  walked  over  to  her  and  ad- 
ministered that  motherly  kiss  of  hers. 

"  My  poor  Alligator !"  she  said.  "  How  you  remind 
me  of  myself  at  your  age !  That  is  why  the  Duke  is  in 
love  with  you." 

"  But  you  never  had  my  opinions,"  said  Allegra,  half 
bemused,  half  mollified. 

"  I  had  the  same  opinion  as  you  of  the  Duke.  You'll 
end  by  agreein'  with  me  about  everything  else.  Wait  till 
you  are  older." 

Again  that  paralyzing  phrase. 

"  Wait  till  you're  as  old  as  I,"  added  Minnie  slyly. 

"  You !"  said  Allegra,  missing  the  subtlety.  "  Why, 
you  are — " 

"  Old  enough  to  agree  with  mother !"  And  Allegra, 
self-convicted  of  obtuseness,  somehow  felt  disarmed. 

"  But  my  mother  will  be  worrying  dreadfully  about 
Tom,"  she  said,  with  a  new  recollection. 

"  Tom  ?"  said  the  Duchess.  "  Is  that  the  way  to  speak 
of  your  father,  Alligator  ?" 

"  Tom  is  my  brother.  He's  with  his  regiment  in  Nova- 
barba.  He  will  have  to  fight  now." 

The  Duchess's  face  glowed  like  a  patriotic  beacon. 
"  What  did  I  tell  you,  Dalesbury  ?  Barks  like  a — like 
a  Broser  and  bites  like  a  Briton.  The  Marjorimont 
blood,  eh  ?  How  it  comes  out !" 

"  Let  us  hope  it  won't  come  out,"  murmured  Minnie. 

"  And  yet,  Alligator,  you  expect  me  to  listen  to  what 
you  say  with  your  silly  little  tongue,  when  all  the  while 
I  can  hear  the  beatin'  of  your  heart." 

Minnie  hummed  the  then  popular  ballad : 

"The  beating  of  my  own  heart 
Wa8  the  only  sound  I  heard." 

It  served  as  a  fresh  hint  to  Allegra  not  to  argue. 
"  And  so  even  this  move  of  your  father's,"  pursued 
the  egotistical  dame,  "  may  only  mean  that  he  sees  his  way 

161 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

to  upset  the  Government,  become  Premier,  and  carry  on 
the  war  better  himself.     But  it's  a  dangerous  game." 

At  that  the  bomb-shell  in  Allegra's  brain  nearly  ex- 
ploded, but  Minnie  humming  fortissimo,  she  merely  said : 
"  I  must  send  a  telegram  to  him  anyhow,  to  ask  if  I  can 
be  of  use." 

"  And  I'll  send  one,"  said  the  Duchess,  "  to  tell  him 
he's  broken  my  heart." 

Curiously  enough,  it  was  the  first  time  either  had  held 
written  communication  with  the  Minister.  Allegra  penned, 
moreover,  the  first  telegram  of  her  guarded  life,  and  had 
a  fitting  sense  of  importance. 

"  Your  little  Ally  is  proud  of  your  splendid  protest 
and  desires  to  know  if  she  can  be  of  use  at  home.  Love 
to  all." 

"  I'll  walk  in  with  it,  aunt,"  she  said.  "  Shall  I  take 
yours  too  ?" 

"  Y"es,  but  see  if  you  can  make  it  out." 

Allegra  read  out  with  cumulative  blushes :  "  Disgusted 
with  your  diplomacy.  A  blunder  of  the  first  order. 
Don't  make  another  by  recalling  Allegra.  We  have  all 
grown  fond  of  the  sweet  child  and  are  gradually  weaning 
her  of  her  ridiculous  opinions.  My  love  to  my  nephew 
in  Novabarba.  Rule  Britannia.  Emma." 

The  task  of  handing  this  to  the  telegraph-operator  loom- 
ed terrible  to  the  shy  girl.  However,  she  could  not  back 
out  now,  and  besides  she  wanted  to  buy  a  Morning  Mirror 
surreptitiously.  With  heavily  veiled  and  averted  face  she 
handed  the  clerk  both  messages  together,  as  if  they  can- 
celled each  other's  indelicacies,  but  he  merely  mentioned 
the  cost. 

In  the  shadow  of  Rosmere,  the  nefarious  Mirror  could 
not  be  found,  and  this  renewed  her  sense  of  revolt,  and  the 
feeling  of  being  somehow  kept  a  prisoner  aggravated  it 
to  hysteric  anger.  Rosmere  hung  like  a  low  ceiling  over 
all  aspiration,  all  free  thinking.  The  ceiling  might  be  of 
ancient  oak,  and  charged  with  historic  poetry,  but  oh,  how 

162 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

it  weighed  one  down !  The  past,  the  past,  always  the 
past.  It  was  the  future  that  beckoned,  that  glimmered. 
Yes,  he  was  right,  that  modern  young  Ethelstan.  Cart 
away  their  graves !  Let  the  past  consume  its  own  smoke. 
To-day  too  has  its  rights,  demands  to  draw  great  free 
breaths.  Down  with  the  ghosts  on  our  shoulders,  the 
yoke  of  the  dead.  The  world  needed  sledge-hammers — 
Dantons,  Tom  Paines,  Brosers — to  crash  rudely  through 
all  these  historic  mendacities,  tyrannies,  injustices;  the 
more  and  not  the  less  grievous  for  the  longer  duration  of 
their  oppressiveness. 

And  amid  the  feudal  curtsying  of  the  village  children 
and  the  cottagers  she  welcomed  the  chance  encounter  with 
William  Curve,  the  fustian-coated  Methodist;  her  pleas- 
ure increasing  when  he  was  found  to  be  in  possession 
of  the  Morning  Mirror,  and  anxious  to  congratulate  her 
father's  daughter. 

"  Ay,  that's  a  man !"  he  said,  giving  her  the  paper. 
"  An  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God." 

She  smiled  so  as  not  to  shed  a  tear.  "  But  I  must  pay 
you  for  the  paper.  Women  are  honest  too." 

He  shook  his  head,  refusing  the  silver  coin.  "  Wom- 
en !"  he  murmured. 

"  Ah,  you  don't  think  highly  of  women !"  she  said 
eagerly. 

"  My  mother  was  a  good  woman."     He  bared  his  head. 

"  You  mean  she  was  as  rare  as  my  father." 

"  Ay,  but  the  best  of  'em's  born  with  a  twist.  I  some- 
times think  an  honest  woman's  the  noblest  work  of  man. 
I'll  be  bidding  you  good-afternoon,  miss." 

Allegra  looked  after  him.  Another  great  soul  hamper- 
ed by  his  wife,  she  surmised.  Yes,  it  was  true.  Women 
were  never  honest — unless  some  noble  man  remade  them. 
She  herself  was  all  hypocrisy  and  guile,  often  permitting 
herself  to  chat  gayly  to  the  ducal  circle — with  bomb- 
shells "  in  her  brain." 

She  walked  back,  rapt  in  the  study  of  the  newspaper, 

163 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

drinking  in  the  praises  of  her  father  like  wine,  her  tread 
growing  springier  with  each  superlative. 

The  young  gentleman  who  distributed  adjectives  in  the 
absence  of  "  Fizzy  "  had,  like  all  imitators,  left  his  origi- 
nal in  the  rear.  The  fall  of  the  Ministry,  under  the  speech 
which  Marshmont  would  contribute  to  the  Debate  on  the 
Address,  was  confidently  prognosticated.  The  second  lead- 
er was  also  devoted  to  the  Novabarbese  crisis,  but  here  the 
same  hand  had  followed  "  Fizzy  "  into  the  realms  of  the 
satiric  and  the  mordant,  and  elaborately  quizzed  the  public 
confusion  as  to  what  it  was  all  about  and  "  what  they 
fought  each  other  for." 

"  How  it  arose  is  wrapped  in  a  mist  of  State  Papers  and 
Foreign  Office  Cyphers,  thickened  to  a  London  fog  by 
journalistic  lying,  and  we  venture  to  affirm  that  no  two 
men  in  the  street  would  assign  the  same  reason  for  their 
sanguinary  intoxication.  Whether  it  was  the  capture  of 
the  missionary,  or  the  disrespect  to  the  British  envoy 
(whom  they  confound  with  an  ambassador)  ;  whether  the 
attack  of  the  panic-stricken  Bangaree  tribesmen  on  the 
Frontier  Force  escorting  the  telegraph  construction  staff, 
or  the  equally  foolish  British  misconception  that  the  Sul- 
tan was  responsible  for  the  raids  of  Talu  Ben,  a  simple 
robber  chief  on  whose  head  the  Sultan  himself  has  set  a 
price;  whether  it  was  the  British  assertion  of  suzerainty 
over  the  new  RTovabarbese  mines,  or  the  European  compli- 
cations as  to  tithes,  or  the  private  feuds  occasioned  by  the 
intrigues  of  the  Dragoons  with  the  native  women — those 
very  Dragoons  sent  out,  be  it  noted,  to  stave  off  war; 
whether  it  was  the  Sultan's  scheming  to  get  back  his  prov- 
ince, or  his  fear  lest  he  lose  the  others;  whether  he  was 
spurred  on  by  Paul  Haze's  ambition  or  his  own  or  his 
youngest  wife's,  or  insulted  by  the  refusal  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria's hand,  to  which  in  his  barbaric  ignorance  he  aspires ; 
or  whether  the  whole  thing  is  the  work  of  those  whom  Mr. 
Marshmont  has  brilliantly  stigmatized  as  '  international 
traitors,'  anxious  to  declare  a  dividend  on  the  common 

164 


HOME  NEWS  AND  FOREIGN 

shares  of  British  West  Xovabarba,  Limited ;  or  has  been 
manoeuvred  by  the  secret  agents  of  the  Continental  Powers 
wishful  to  see  Britain  expelled  from  Novabarba  and  their 
own  Hinterlands  extended;  whether  it  was  the  bungling 
diplomacy  of  Governor  Stacks,  or  his  obedience  to  secret 
orders  from  Whitehall,  or  the  overzeal  of  a  brilliant  soldier 
with  his  deaf  ear  turned  to  Downing  Street,  making  un- 
sanctioned  attacks  on  the  natives,  or  unauthorized  promises 
to  them ;  or  whether  it  was  the  policy  of  the  Colonial  Of- 
fice to  depose  the  Sultan  and  replace  him  by  a  sovereign 
more  subservient  to  British  interests — in  short,  from 
whichever  of  the  entanglements  that  beset  the  feet  of  the 
white  man  insinuating  himself  among  inferior  races  the 
present  war  arises,  one  thing  is  clear:  the  man  in  the 
street  only  knows  that  a  pack  of  mongrels  has  dared  to  bark 
at  the  British  Lion,  and  must  be  wiped  out." 

When  Allegra  returned  home,  she  found  a  telegram — 
her  first. 

"  So  glad  you  approve  of  my  giving  up  the  great  seals 
of  office  stay  with  your  aunt  broser  is  a  blessing  love 
Marshmont." 


A    BLOODY    BANQUET 

POSSIBLY  the  Duke  could  have  become  Mayor  of  Mid- 
stoke  itself.     King's  Paddock  at  any  rate  bowed  to 
the  dust,  overwhelmed,  and  added  a  lantern  procession  to 
the  civic  festivities  of  the  gala-day. 

The  house-party  at  Rosmere  made  merry  over  the  new 
dignity.  Even  the  foreigners  were  tickled.  The  host 
was  addressed  as  "  Mr.  Mayor."  Those  poor  simple 
townspeople !  Those  innocent  important  Aldermen !  The 
young  Marquess  of  Stornaway  discovered  that  the  Duchess 
was  now  "  the  Mayoress,"  and  more  hilarity  prevailed. 
Some  of  the  visitors  went  down  to  see  the  fun  of  the 
Duke's  inauguration,  and  the  local  reporters  wrote  fever- 
ishly of  the  eclat  of  this  red-letter  day  in  the  annals  of 
King's  Paddock,  and  of  the  illustrious  personages,  native 
and  foreign,  who  graced  the  ancient  ceremonials  and  par- 
took of  the  Mayoral  Banquet. 

In  the  evening,  after  an  early  dinner  at  Rosmere,  Min- 
nie and  Allegra,  and  Lady  Sheen,  who  was  the  Mar- 
quess's sister  and  the  wife  of  a  notorious  Earl  about  town, 
drove  over  to  King's  Paddock  to  hear  the  after-dinner 
speeches.  The  Duchess,  though  dying  to  hear  her  hus- 
band's brilliant  oration,  felt  it  unbefitting  her  dignity  to 
sit  among  the  civic  ladies  in  the  gallery,  nor  would  she 
make  a  breach  in  the  time-honored  British  etiquette  by 
sitting  at  the  Mayoral  table,  though  the  bosoms  of  the  cor- 
poration would  have  swollen  with  even  greater  pride,  had 
she  drunk  their  turtle  soup  or  taken  wine  with  each  in 
turn. 

166 


A    BLOODY    BANQUET 

As  the  carriage  passed  through  the  dusky  old-fashioned 
arcaded  streets,  the  town  seemed  alive  with  revelry. 
Bands  were  blaring,  unconcerted  concertinas  were  squeak- 
ing, girls  were  hawking  large  colored  streamers,  and  de- 
spite the  raw  iNTovember  air  a  great  crowd  hovered  about 
the  Town  Hall  like  flies  round  a  banquet,  though  more 
futilely.  The  newspaper  boys  standing  about  the  quaint 
market-cross  were  comparatively  unregarded,  despite  their 
placards  of  "  More  British  losses."  For,  although  it  was 
annoying  to  find  the  Novabarbese  illogically  withstanding 
Britain's  more  civilized  troops,  yet  everybody  knew  they 
were  only  making  things  worse  for  themselves  in  the  end. 
What  was  more  serious  was  the  discovery  by  the  public 
that  most  of  the  tribes  were  Christians  of  one  denomina- 
tion or  the  other — so  well  had  the  missionaries  done  their 
work — and  hence  their  conversion  could  not  be  looked  for 
to  redeem  the  bloodshed. 

An  illustrious  French  missionary,  returned  to  Europe, 
testified  that  he  yearned  to  go  back  to  his  dear  Novabar- 
bese,  who  called  him  "  Pere,"  and  who,  if  they  returned 
from  a  toilsome  hunting  expedition  with  only  one  piece 
of  game,  would  lay  it  at  his  feet.  His  flock  was  the  most 
nomadic  and  primitive  of  all  the  tribes,  yet  they  had  not 
even  a  tradition  of  cannibalism,  but  on  the  contrary  faded 
legends  of  a  civilization  anterior  to  the  glories  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon.  They  were  a  noble,  simple  stock,  half  chil- 
dren, half  lions. 

To  crown  their  perverseness,  all  the  tribes  appealed  to 
Christian  ethics  and  the  justice  of  their  cause,  though 
united  under  a  paynim  Sultan  whose  polygamy,  it  was 
felt,  made  such  protestations  unbecoming  and  even  inde- 
cent. Moreover,  these  guileless  people  seemed  to  be 
aware  (oh  those  Continental  intriguers  with  their  rival 
missionaries ! )  that  they  had  sympathizers  in  Europe,  and 
even  a  spokesman  in  Britain's  own  Council  Chamber,  a 
great  chief,  who  had  abdicated  from  his  leadership  rather 
than  send  his  troops  out  against  them.  Altogether  the 

167 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

contest  boded  to  be  longer  and  bloodier  than  had  been  fore- 
seen, the  Teutonic  military  adventurer,  Paul  Haze,  having 
done  his  work  almost  as  well  as  the  missionaries,  while 
the  possibilities  of  European  complications  at  some  stage 
of  the  struggle  had  contributed  to  embitter  the  Mirror's 
"  man  in  the  street."  Marshmont  had  been  a  straw  fight- 
ing against  a  current.  His  speech  to  his  constituents  had 
met  little  favor  in  his  own  constituency  (where  the  Tory 
squire  was  still  paramount),  and  had  raised  a  storm  of 
hostility  without ;  his  protest  in  the  Parliament,  which  had 
met  to  vote  supplies,  did  nothing  to  diminish  them,  find- 
ing few  supporters  outside  the  seasoned  members  of  the 
Peace  Party,  and  evoking  many  catcalls  and  cries  of 
"  Shame  "  and  "  Order,"  besides  being  interrupted  and 
damped  by  the  Tory  cheers  acclaiming  the  news  just  ar- 
rived of  the  defeat  of  the  blind  Radical.  Marshmont's 
mixture  of  moral  arraignment  with  punctilious  arithmetic 
in  this  speech  won  him  the  nickname  of  the  Prophet 
Petty  Cash;  a  title  lending  itself  felicitously  to  the 
pictorial  grotesqueries  of  the  caricaturist. 

The  outcast  Prophet  Petty  Cash  in  his  hundred  shapes 
became  better  known  to  the  mob  than  the  Right  Hon. 
Thomas  Marshmont  had  ever  been  in  the  fullest  glory  of 
his  ministerial  career.  And  what  wounded  him  more 
deeply,  Midstoke — Midstoke  itself — at  a  mass-meet- 
ing, had  proclaimed  its  confidence  in  the  Government  and 
broken  the  heads  of  the  dissenting  few.  Marshmont,  at  a 
safe  distance,  had  only  his  heart  broken.  Although  the 
Radical  M.  P.  who  had  not  been  asked  to  take  the  chair 
at  the  Bryden  Memorial  Meeting  had  occupied  it  at  this, 
Marshmont  did  not  suspect  the  man's  good  faith.  He  put 
down  the  collapse  of  the  centre  of  Radicalism  to  Broser's 
absence,  and  did  not  know  that  Broser  had  inspired  the 
explanation. 

Allegra  had  been  looking  forward  to  the  humors  of  the 
Mayoral  Banquet  by  way  of  relief,  so  surfeited  had  she 
been  with  these  horrors  and  those  of  her  imagination. 

168 


A    BLOODY    BANQUET 

Ever  since  the  night  of  the  burnt  moths,  the  thought  of  war 
had  been  a  pictured  chaos  of  atrocities,  and  now  that  she 
was  able  definitely  to  visualize  Tom  and  Colonel  Orr- 
Stenton  in  the  thick  of  the  melee,  the  wounds — of  which 
she  read  with  morbid  fascination — were  felt  through  her 
own  body,  sometimes  so  vividly  that  they  might  have  left 
stigmata.  Nor  did  she  suffer  less  for  the  Novabarbese, 
whose  cause — on  her  father's  authority — she  esteemed  the 
more  righteous.  All  this  made  her  pale  and  sleepless,  her 
mouth  had  lost  its  trick  of  humor,  the  sun  had  gone  out  of 
her  eyes.  She  longed  to  return  home,  and  hence  this  fete- 
day  had  been  a  point  of  light  for  the  further  reason  that 
it  marked  the  term  of  her  stay  at  Rosmere.  Sunday 
would  see  the  Duke  enduring  the  religious  supplement 
of  the  civic  ceremonies,  but  after  Monday,  Rosmere  would 
return  to  the  tourist. 

Allegra  looked  down  on  six  long  tables  agleam  and  aglow 
with  glass  and  silver  and  fruit  and  flowers,  and  tall  loving- 
cups  and  racing  trophies,  and  bordered  by  rows  of  heads, 
in  various  stages  of  baldness,  with  here  and  there  a  uniform 
blazing  amid  the  black  dress-coats.  Overhead  stretched 
a  florid  white  and  gold  ceiling,  but  the  wall  panels  were 
blank,  "  evidently  designed,"  said  Minnie,  "  to  be  filled 
some  day  with  bad  frescoes."  Over  the  lintel  of  the  cen- 
tral doorway  ran  the  inscription  in  Old  English  lettering, 
"  In  God  we  trust."  At  the  farthest  extremity  of  the  room 
was  a  platform  with  what  seemed  to  Allegra  a  large  Christ- 
mas tree,  on  which  men-toys  dangled,  as  if  for  the  edifica- 
tion of  a  nursery  of  giants,  but  suddenly,  with  a  burst  of 
music,  it  turned  into  a  medley  of  palms  and  chrysanthe- 
mums, half  concealing,  half  revealing,  an  orchestra. 

"  Ha,  there's  father !"  And  Minnie's  face  wrinkled  in 
a  broad  smile. 

"  Where  ?"  cried  Allegra,  craning  her  head  over  the 
grille. 

Following  the  angle  of  Minnie's  neck  and  shoulder,  Al- 
legra discovered  the  little  man  shrinking  shyly  into  the 

169 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

recesses  of  a  great  chair  of  state,  but  with  his  furred  robe 
of  office  thrown  back  as  though  it  stifled  him.  Over  his 
head  rose  from  behind  his  chair  an  infinitely  grander  being, 
all  gold  lace,  and  shouldering  a  gilded  mace  like  a  sceptre. 

"  Who  is  that  ?"  she  whispered. 

"  That's  the  toast-master/'  said  Lady  Sheen  gravely. 
The  Countess  was  the  very  antithesis  of  Minnie:  placid, 
platitudinarian,  and  with  a  sneaking  affection  for  High- 
Church  practices. 

Allegra's  glance  met  Minnie's  and  Allegra  stifled  a 
laugh.  When  she  became  aware  that  she  must  not  laugh, 
because  somebody  had  just  started  speaking,  her  desire  to 
laugh  became  hysterical,  and  she  was  glad  when  a  great 
guffaw  of  amusement  enabled  her  to  work  off  her  emotion 
politely. 

At  first  she  could  scarcely  catch  the  words  of  the  speak- 
ers or  concentrate  her  attention  on  their  banal  verbiage, 
but  gradually  it  was  borne  in  upon  her  that  her  expecta- 
tions of  petty  civic  humors  were  to  be  balked,  that  she  was 
to  hear  nothing  but  braggart  allusions  to  the  Flag  and 
Novabarba.  It  was  not  only  that  the  Army  and  Navy 
toast  was  drunk  with  deafening  enthusiasm — for  this  was 
natural  with  a  Major-General  and  an  Admiral  brought 
over  from  Rosmere ;  it  was  not  only  that  the  Major-General 
declared  that  never  had  Britain  had  so  brave  an  army  as 
to-day,  while  the  Admiral,  with  the  cocksure  cheeriness 
which  Allegra  was  learning  to  associate  with  Admirals, 
certified  that  England's  fleet  could  beat  back  the  Armadas 
of  Europe ;  every  one  of  the  speakers  went  out  of  his  way 
to  mention  the  War,  and  Britain's  honor.  Both  occurred 
even  in  the  toast  of  the  Town  Clerk,  together  with  the  re- 
capitulation of  stale  newspaper  anecdotes  illustrative  of 
British  valor,  and  the  Town  Clerk  in  replying  said  that 
England  would  not  falter  in  her  Imperial  mission,  no, 
though  a  thousand  Prophets  of  Mammon  counted  the  Petty 
Cash,  and  a  thousand  Quakers  stuffed  their  ears  to  His- 
tory's trumpet-call  with  their  own  cotton — an  allusion  to 

170 


A    BLOODY    BANQUET 

some  manufacturing  members  of  the  Peace  Party  that  was 
vastly  enjoyed.  The  trumpet-call  itself  was  sounded  by 
the  orchestra  between  the  speeches,  and  the  war-drum  was 
banged  with  savage  gusto,  and  there  was  a  great  glow  of 
patriotism  and  champagne. 

At  Midstoke,  Allegra  had  gained  her  first  perception  of 
the  forces  that  were  with  her  father ;  at  King's  Paddock, 
she  realized  sensuously  for  the  first  time  the  forces  against, 
and  their  crushing  predominance  was  intensified  by  the  bit- 
ter recollection  that  even  Midstoke  had  failed  him.  Brit- 
ain's blood  was  up,  a  speaker  cried,  and  for  one  mad  mo- 
ment of  delirious  defiance  to  United  Europe,  Allegra  al- 
most seemed  to  see  it  staining  red  those  white-and-black 
uniforms  of  peace.  The  next  moment  her  own  blood 
glowed  furiously  in  her  veins.  The  speaker  had  passed 
on  to  taunt  her  father;  he  declared  that  but  for  Marsh- 
mont's  known  sympathy  the  Novabarbese  would  not  have 
had  the  courage  to  go  on  fighting :  such  a  man  was  a  traitor 
to  his  country ;  on  his  head  lay  the  blood  of  the  slaughtered 
English  soldiers. 

On  his  head — her  father's  head?  Oh  infamy!  Oh 
thrice-accursed  British  Pharisaism !  Her  hands  gripped 
the  gallery  bar  frenziedly,  her  eyes  shot  sparks,  her  throat 
ejaculated  hoarsely,  "  Liar !"  But  her  cry  was  drowned 
in  the  vast  roar  of  approval;  and  Minnie,  amused  and 
dismayed,  pulled  her  back,  saying,  with  a  smile,  "  Wom- 
en may  not  speak." 

"  I  will  speak,"  hissed  Allegra,  white-hot.  "  They 
sha'n't  lie  about  my  father." 

"  You  mustn't  annoy  mine." 

Allegra's  eye  turned  involuntarily  to  the  Mayor's  chair. 
The  poor  Duke  was  writhing  nervously,  waiting  for  the 
rattle  and  roar  to  subside.  But  they  rose  again  and  again, 
mingled  with  cries  of  "  Down  with  traitors."  And  then 
somebody  called  for  three  groans  for  the  Prophet  Petty 
Cash,  and  the  festive  company  became  a  patriotic  fog-horn. 
It  was  Midstoke  reversed  with  a  vengeance.  There,  she 

171 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

had  been  elated  by  noise,  had  built  dreams  on  breath.  Oh 
how  foolish!  And  now — women  might  not  speak!  Oh 
for  a  moment  of  Broser!  Oh  for  his  strenuous  voice  to 
thunder  against  these  blood-thirsty  guzzlers,  these  defamers 
of  a  great  soul  who  had  given  up  all  to  follow  the  God 
their  lintel  paraded  and  their  groans  denied!  England's 
Imperial  mission  ?  England's  providential  destiny  ? 
What  did  it  all  mean?  Was  it  to  multiply  Midstokes 
through  the  world,  people  the  grassy  spaces  of  the  planet 
with  famished  factory  girls,  or  even  well-fed  Aldermen? 
If  an  apple  was  rotten  at  the  core,  its  swelling  to  the  size 
of  a  melon  did  not  make  it  greater.  Nay,  were  not  swell- 
ings the  sign  of  disease  ?  What  was  this  vaunted  Eng- 
land? Was  it  something  apart  from  the  millions  seeth- 
ing in  its  slums,  or  rotting  in  its  honeysuckled  cottages, 
or  even  swilling  champagne  in  its  banqueting  halls  ?  She 
could  not  understand.  Was  it  not  sufficient  of  a  mission 
— enough  to  task  the  finest  hearts  and  brains — to  set 
things  straighter  at  home  ?  That  was  all  her  father  preach- 
ed. And  for  this  he  was  to  be  called  traitor,  hooted  like 
a  felon,  caricatured,  pursued  with  hue-and-cry !  Heaven 
save  England  from  her  patriots,  he  had  cried  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  it  was  this  phrase,  she  felt  sure,  that  England 
could  not  forgive  him;  this  phrase  that  rankled  in  the 
breasts  of  the  speakers  to-night  and  poisoned  their  com- 
placency, while  it  envenomed  their  utterances. 

The  Duke's  evident  uneasiness  on  her  behalf — he  now 
seemed  to  be  instructing  the  gilded  toast-master  to  cry 
"  Order  " — softened  Allegra's  anger.  The  Duke  at  least 
was  a  gentleman.  By  the  time  the  speaker  was  able  to 
resume,  she  had  simmered  down  to  disdain.  She  bor- 
rowed an  opera-glass  which  the  Countess  had  brought  with 
her.  That  beef-faced,  low-browed  bourgeois  her  father's 
censor ! 

So  far  from  giving  up  India,  as  these  false  prophets 
counselled,  Britain,  he  was  crying,  would  never  sleep  till 
the  Union  Jack  waved  over  every  inch  of  Novabarba. 

172 


A    BLOODY    BANQUET 

"  Does  he  mean  one  flag  per  inch  ?"  whispered  Minnie, 
who  had  begun  to  sketch  him  on  a  scrap  of  paper. 

But  Allegra  was  now  too  fascinated  to  reply.  She  was 
watching  the  red  fleshy  back  of  his  neck  bulging  out,  in 
the  stress  of  his  emotion,  against  his  high  shirt  -  collar 
like  a  purple  wen,  and  she  was  wondering  if  he  would  die 
then  and  there  of  patriotic  apoplexy.  Rather  to  her 
relief,  he  sat  down  uninjured,  his  wen  subsiding  peace- 
fully. And  then  an  agreeable  interlude  was  provided 
by  a  company  of  mummers,  who  came  by  ancient  custom 
to  present  an  address  to  his  Worship.  But  these,  too, 
were  heralded  by  patriotic  strains  from  a  street  band,  and 
masqueraded  mainly  as  soldiers  and  sailors.  They  halt- 
ed awkwardly  before  the  mayoral  chair,  playing  their 
parts  with  the  uncouthness  of  an  inartistic  race;  some 
achieved  clumsily  a  military  or  nautical  salute,  the  high- 
est reach  of  their  invention. 

But  now  the  toast  of  the  evening  approached,  and  the 
toast-master  in  his  most  impressive  tones  begged  silence 
for  it.  The  Dean  of  Mossop  proposed  it,  to  a  running 
fire  of  cheers.  He  had  a  spacious  countenance,  bushed  in 
white.  He  said,  on  account  of  the  lateness  of  the  hour, 
and  the  well-known  modesty  of  his  Grace,  he  would  not 
praise  their  new  Mayor,  but  just  ask  them  to  drink  the 
toast.  Besides,  everybody  knew  that  for  a  combination 
of  manly  and  statesmanly  qualities  the  Duke  of  Dales- 
bury  was  unsurpassed  in  his  generation;  that,  setting  an 
example  to  the  peerage  of  devotion  to  the  City  as  well  as 
to  the  State,  he  had  added  the  responsibilities  of  the  Civic 
Council  to  the  burden  of  the  House  of  Lords ;  that  in  an 
age  in  which  the  upper  classes  did  not  always  remember 
the  motto,  Noblesse  oblige — 

"  Thank  Heaven,  the  cloven  hoof  of  Radicalism  at  last !" 
whispered  Allegra. 

"  No ;  the  aureole  of  the  Church,"  Minnie  reminded 
her. 

— that  in  an  age  in  which  the  domestic  virtues  were 

173 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

flouted  by  some  so-called  leaders  of  society,  the  Duke,  by 
his  shining  example  of  matrimonial  stability  and  felicity, 
was  in  the  strictest  sense  a  pillar  of  State  and  Church; 
that  his  world  -  wide  reputation  for  philanthropy  was 
supplemented,  he  might  even  say  hall-marked,  by  a  local 
reputation  for  goodness  of  heart,  for  personal  interest 
in  the  humblest  of  his  cottagers;  that  amid  all  these  di- 
verse interests  and  occupations  he  had  yet  found  time  to 
win  another  reputation  as  an  authority  upon  art  and  his- 
tory; that  whatever  role  he  had  hitherto  filled,  he  had 
filled  brilliantly ;  and  who  could  doubt,  therefore,  but  that 
in  the  capacity  of  Mayor  of  their  ancient  borough,  their 
noble  friend  would  add  new  lustre  to  his  name  and  the 
annals  of  King's  Paddock?  Since  all  men  knew  these 
things,  why  should  he,  the  Dean,  take  up  their  time  with 
recapitulating  them?  No;  he  would  spare  the  noble 
Mayor's  blushes.  He  would  not  say  that — 

Here  began  a  new  list  of  virtues.  Had  a  degenerate 
posterity  forgotten  the  very  vocabulary  of  virtue,  it 
might  have  been  reconstructed  in  its  entirety  from  the 
exhumed  description  of  the  Duke  of  Dalesbury  by  the 
Dean  of  Mossop  on  the  memorable  occasion  of  his  Grace's 
assumption  of  the  mayoralty  of  the  ancient  borough  of 
King's  Paddock.  Allegra  fretted  impatiently.  Much  as 
she  liked  the  Duke,  it  seemed  to  her  that  larks  fell  into  his 
mouth  roasted;  that  he  was  complimented  on  the  cooking 
of  them,  and  thanked  for  consuming  them.  But  she  for- 
gave the  Duke  his  good  fortune  when  she  found  that  in  his 
reply  he  carefully  neglected  Novabarba,  save  by  a  back- 
handed allusion.  Although  men  might  differ — and  differ 
honestly,  he  said  with  emphasis — about  foreign  politics, 
there  could  be  no  two  opinions  on  the  home  politics  of 
King's  Paddock.  (Here  came  a  Latin  -  sounding  quota- 
tion which  Allegra  did  not  understand,  but  which  every- 
body else  applauded.)  The  historic  glories  of  its  medic- 
inal springs  must  be  restored,  and  to  this  end  the  beau- 
tiful orchestra  they  had  heard  to-night  should  play  all 

174 


A    BLOODY    BANQUET 

the  season  in  the  public  gardens — at  his  expense.  And 
in  the  perfervid  cheers  hailing  the  happy  prospect  of  a  re- 
juvenated King's  Paddock,  XovaViarba  and  the  Empire 
were  forgotten. 

Nor  was  Allegra  wholly  cheated  of  the  anticipated 
humors,  though  they  came  a  day  after  the  fair.  The 
world  was  just  revelling  in  the  early  developments  of 
photography,  and  a  shrewd  King's  Paddock  photographer, 
foreseeing  an  immense  demand,  had  begged  the  Duke  to 
honor  him  with  a  sitting  in  his  mayoral  robes.  This  the 
Duke  had  shudderingly  declined:  once  in  his  life  he  had 
donned  his  Peer's  robes,  and  then  relapsed  with  relief  into 
his  dressing-gown.  He  had  taken  to  his  bed  to  avoid 
wearing  his  coronet  at  the  Queen's  coronation,  and  loyally 
hoped  there  would  be  no  other  coronation  in  his  lifetime. 
The  brave  Admiral  nevertheless  displayed  at  Eosmere 
a  photograph  of  "  Our  noble  Mayor  "  bought  in  the  town. 
Under  pressure  the  photographer  confessed  that  the  head 
had  been  got  from  a  miniature,  while  somebody  had  sat  in 
the  robes  for  the  body. 


CHAPTER    XVI 
WAR 

WE  sha'n't  wait  any  longer,"  said  Mrs.  Marshmont 
decisively,  as  she  got  up  from  her  dog-armed  easy- 
chair.  She  was  a  radiant  figure  in  a  red  dinner-gown, 
from  which  her  shoulders  rose  in  almost  arrogant  beauty. 
Nor  were  her  four  daughters  less  dazzling  in  their  several 
frocks.  Allegra,  happy  to  be  home  again,  and  magnetized 
afresh  by  her  mother,  nestled  in  blue  near  the  parental  red. 
Lord  Arthur  Pangthorne  was  to  come  to  dinner  and  be 
broken  to  his  future  father-in-law,  who,  all  unaware  of 
the  reason,  had  promised  faithfully  to  escape  from  the 
House  of  Commons.  So  far  neither  male  had  appeared, 
though  the  dinner  hour  had  gurgled  softly  from  the  in- 
fantine interior  of  the  colossal  allegorical  clock.  Mrs. 
Marshmont's  temper  always  spoiled  synchronously  with 
the  dishes,  and  the  better  the  dinner  the  worse  her  temper. 

"  But,  mother,"  urged  Mabel,  whose  beautiful  face  had 
grown  whiter  and  whiter  with  each  tick  of  the  clock,  "  we 
can't  begin  without  Arthur." 

"  And  pray  who  is  your  Arthur  that  he  should  be  more 
important  than  your  father?  If  we  can  begin  without 
the  one,  we  can  begin  without  the  other." 

"  Let  us  wait  five  minutes  longer,"  pleaded  Allegra. 
She  was  quite  anxious  to  see  the  young  gentleman  who 
had  bowled  over  Mabel. 

"  No ;  now  is  the  time  for  Mabel  to  teach  her  sweetheart 
a  lesson.  I  have  had  to  suffer  this  all  my  life  from  your 
father." 

"  He  has  had  more  important  business  to  attend  to," 
said  Allegra  gently. 

176 


WAR 

"  More  important,  Miss  Impudence !  And  what  can 
be  more  important  than  a  man's  own  household  ?  I  hope 
you  may  never  come  to  marry  a  politician !" 

"  I  hope  I  may,"  slipped  from  Allegra's  tongue. 

"  Then  marry  one  with  sense — not  one  who  ruins  his 
wife  and  children  to  gratify  his  selfish  ideas.  And  with 
his  throat  in  that  state,  too !  I  don't  know  how  we're  to 
live." 

"  We  are  all  going  to  earn  our  own  livings,"  said  Alle- 
gra  gravely. 

"  Earn  your  livings !"  screamed  Mrs.  Marshmont,  gen- 
uinely shocked.  It  was  the  day  when  women  were  divided 
into  ladies,  housewives,  and  servants. 

"  I  shall  open  a  school  for  languages,"  said  Dulsie. 

"  You !"  cried  her  mother  seriously.  "  What  girls 
would  obey  you  ?" 

"  I  shouldn't  teach  girls,"  Dulsie  replied  gravely. 
"  Young  men." 

Mrs.  Marshmont  gasped. 

"  By  correspondence,"  Dulsie  added  suavely. 

"  And  mother  could  give  Shaksperean  readings,"  said 
Mabel,  brightened  by  her  sister's  humor. 

"  No,"  corrected  Joan,  who  was  doing  Berlin  wool-work. 
"  *  How  does  the  water  come  down  at  Lodore  ?' '  She 
winked  at  Mabel  to  keep  it  up  and  gain  time. 

"  Arthur  will  earn  my  living,"  said  Mabel. 

"  I  didn't  know  he  could  earn  his  own,"  snapped  her 
mother. 

"  Well — he  has  an  allowance." 

"  It  doesn't  allow  for  two." 

"  Wait  till  Arthur  becomes  an  M.  P.,"  she  replied 
incautiously. 

"  I  will  not  wait  another  moment,"  said  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont, sweeping  doorwards. 

"  Listen !"  said  Joan.     "  What's  the  newsboy  calling  ?" 

"  I  hear  no  newsboy,"  said  her  mother. 

"  I  made  sure  I  heard  him,"  and  Joan  approached  the 

177 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

window  and  gazed  out  on  the  empty  road  and  the  lights  of 
the  river  twinkling  brilliantly  in  the  frosty  November 
air. 

"  Do  let's  send  out  and  get  a  paper,  mother,"  said 
Mabel,  catching  up  the  cue.  "  There  may  be  a  British 
victory  by  now." 

"  There  will  be  no  British  victories  this  week,"  said 
Mrs.  Marshmont  gloomily.  "  If  things  go  wrong  on  a 
Monday,  they  go  wrong  all  the  week." 

"  But  you  don't  suppose  the  English  generals  will  sit 
down  a  whole  week  under  their  thrashing,"  Joan  urged. 

"  Tom's  regiment  was  never  thrashed,"  said  Mrs. 
Marshmont  indignantly. 

The  war  had  ceased  to  be  a  dangerous  domestic  topic. 
Before  the  first  battle,  Mrs.  Marshmont  had  lived  in  a 
state  distressing  to  herself,  and  still  more  to  her  family. 
But  when  Tom's  regiment  came  out  of  it  with  only  one 
man  killed  and  one  wounded,  and  neither  of  them  Tom, 
Mrs.  Marshmont  began  to  perceive  that  battle  and  sudden 
death  are  not  synonymous.  When  he  emerged  unscratch- 
ed  from  the  second,  and  received  a  poisoned  arrow  in 
Gwenny's  Bible  during  the  third,  Mrs.  Marshmont's  con- 
viction that  he  bore  a  charmed  life  grew  bullet-proof,  and 
his  joyous  letters  to  her  turned  her  thoughts  from  wind- 
ing-sheets to  medals. 

"  No,"  assented  Allegra,  who  was  as  proud  as  her  mother 
of  Tom's  prowess,  despite  all  her  theories  and  imaginative 
sufferings.  "  Tom  has  been  lucky  enough  to  be  in  all  the 
wins,  and  out  of  all  the  losses." 

"  It  is  extraordinary,"  complained  Mrs.  Marshmont, 
breaking  out  in  a  new  place,  "  that  Tom  can  go  to  war 
and  get  never  a  scratch,  while  my  poor  rat  goes  to  a  haunt 
of  peace  and  gets  killed!"  She  spoke  as  if  both  halves 
of  the  proposition  were  grievances  alike,  and  even  Joan 
was  disconcerted  by  this  flank  movement  and  might  not 
have  known  how  to  turn  it,  had  not  a  double  knock  at  the 
door  set  all  hearts  jumping.  In  another  minute  Gwenny 

178 


WAR 

appeared  with  a  telegram.     "  For  Miss  Mabel,"  she  said, 
"  and  I've  come  to  say  my  dinner  can't  wait  any  longer." 

The  girl  tore  it  open,  trembling,  then  passed  it  to  her 
mother,  who  read  aloud  in  tragic  accents : 

"  Awfully  sorry  prevented  coming  dinner  awful  family 
row  they  are  awfully  annoyed  at  your  governor's  speeches 
against  the  war  my  governor  threatens  to  cut  off  alow- 
ance  its  simply  awful  shall  try  to  come  in  later  no  more 
imagine  the  rest  as  wires  are  so  awfully  public  besides 
being  expensive  Arthur." 

"  There !  and  what  did  I  tell  you  ?"  said  Mrs.  Marsh- 
mont.  "  Your  father  is  not  content  with  ruining  my  hap- 
piness, he  will  ruin  my  children's  too."  She  spoke  imper- 
sonally, as  if  they  had  all  elected  a  father  and  foisted  him 
on  her. 

"  And  a  very  good  thing  for  Mabel !"  said  Joan. 

"  You  will  please  mind  your  own  business.  You  ought 
to  be  in  the  nursery  with  your  doll,"  and  Mabel  burst  into 
tears. 

"My  poor  lamb!"  The  mother  was  at  her  side  in- 
stantly, pressing  her  to  her  bosom,  regardless  of  both  their 
gowns. 

"  And  you  with  your  doll  ought  to  be  in  the  nursery," 
retorted  Joan. 

"  Is  there  any  answer  ?"  interrupted  Gwenny  impatient- 
ly. "  The  boy  is  waiting." 

"  Let  him  wait.  Haven't  we  been  waiting  hours  ?"  said 
Mrs.  Marshmont  incoherently. 

"  When  young  people  once  get  following  one  another," 
said  Gwenny  sternly,  "  it  always  plays  the  mischief  with 
meal-times." 

"  Following  one  another !"  cried  Allegra.  "  What  a 
beautiful  phrase !" 

Dulsie  laughed :  "  You  are  ignorant,  Ally.  That's 
Welsh  for  '  engaged  ' !  A  Welsh  officer  told  me." 

179 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  The  boy  need  not  wait,  Gwenny,"  said  Joan.  "  There 
is  no  answer." 

Mabel  started  out  of  her  mother's  arms  as  if  to  pro- 
test, but  not  bethinking  herself  of  anything  to  say,  she  let 
Gwenny  depart. 

"  And  we  need  not  wait  either,"  said  Mrs.  Marshmont, 
leading  the  way  firmly.  "  Your  father  promised  me  to 
come,  but  it's  no  use  relying  on  his  sense  of  honor.  Come, 
my  poor  Mabel,  there  is  some  nice  lobster  soup." 

"  All  is  lost  save  lobster,"  said  Dulsie  dramatically. 

"  But  listen !"  said  Joan,  still  at  her  window.  "  There 
is  some  street  row." 

Even  poor  Mabel  suppressed  a  smile — Joan's  inven- 
tiveness was  too  audacious.  Ere  Mrs.  Marshmont  had 
reached  the  door,  however,  it  became  evident  that  Joan 
was  speaking  the  truth.  Shrieks,  groans,  whistles,  hoots, 
dulled  and  stifled  the  sense  of  the  articulate  cries  that 
seemed  blent  with  them.  All  ran  to  the  windows,  and 
Allegra  was  about  to  throw  up  a  sash.  Joan's  hand  re- 
strained hers.  "  We  shall  all  catch  our  death  of  cold,  you 
idiot."  In  the  dim  light  they  could  just  descry  through 
the  glass  the  figure  of  a  man  followed  by  a  menacing  gang. 
In  another  instant,  as  he  came  through  their  own  gate,  a 
cry  broke  from  Allegra's  lips. 

"It's  father!" 

Simultaneously  with  her  cry  came  the  crash  of  a  stone 
at  their  window — provoked  by  the  galaxy  of  beauty  so 
radiantly  revealed.  Mabel  shrieked  and  Dulsie  fell  back, 
trembling  violently. 

"  Cowards !"  their  father's  voice  rang  out,  heard  clearly 
through  the  broken  pane.  "  Attacking  women !"  He  had 
turned  and  faced  them,  brandishing  his  great  stick,  as  they 
followed  him  up  the  drive,  and  they  shrank  back,  as  louts 
without  a  leader  will  always  shrink  before  a  defiant  eye, 
and  perhaps  with  some  vague  British  instinct  against 
trespassing  on  private  property. 

"  Yah !  Petty  Cash !"  they  groaned  as  in  farewell. 

180 


WAK 

But  a  jocose  rough  in  the  middle,  to  whom  the  eye  was  in- 
visible, gave  a  violent  shove  to  those  in  front  of  him,  so 
that  they  toppled  upon  Marshmont,  who  thrust  them  back 
with  the  ferrule  of  his  stick.  Then  the  hustling  mob, 
howling  obscenely  against  traitors  and  Prophets  of  Petty 
Cash,  closed  upon  him,  and  Allegra  felt  herself  being 
bruised  and  trampled  upon  as  she  gazed  paralyzed  upon 
this  unexpected  scene.  But  ere  she  could  move  or  speak,  a 
beautiful  red-robed  bare-shouldered  figure  burst  upon  the 
gravel  path,  and  into  the  heart  of  the  affray,  and  drag- 
ging back  the  ex-Minister,  confronted  the  mob,  with  her 
white  bosom  panting  indignantly,  and  her  hands  and 
voice  raised  like  a  tragedy  queen's. 

"  Brutes !  You  call  yourselves  Englishmen !  Fifty  to 
one !  Fight  fair,  you  hounds  of  hell !" 

The  roughs  cowered  before  the  blaze  of  beauty  and 
wrath — fascinated  like  all  animals  by  this  strange  creat- 
ure ;  the  more  respectable  of  the  crowd  drew  back  in  sud- 
den shame.  Allegra  was  irresistibly  reminded  of  the 
hare-and-hounds  episode,  which  had  united  these  two  ill- 
matched  lives,  and  she  wondered  at  this  curious  complex 
development  of  Fate's  freakishness,  as  she  watched  her 
mother  pass  majestically  into  the  house  with  her  rescued 
husband,  who  had  hastily  thrown  his  scarf  round  her 
shoulders.  She  ran  down  into  the  hall,  to  find  her  mother 
unexpectedly  sobbing  over  him,  wiping  blood  from  his 
face  with  her  dainty  lace  handkerchief,  and  mingling 
little  pitiful  love-murmurs  with  her  sobs,  while  the  maid- 
servants and  the  page-of -all-work  stood  gaping. 

"  It  is  nothing,  darling,  it  is  nothing,"  he  kept  protest- 
ing laughingly.  "  Do  let  me  run  up  and  dress  for  din- 
ner." 

"  There  is  no  dinner,"  she  sobbed  vaguely.  "  Lord 
Arthur  hasn't  come.  Oh  my  poor  forsaken  lambkin !" 

"  Lord  Arthur  ?"  he  repeated  inquiringly. 

"  Never  mind  now — nothing  matters  now.  You  are 
safe,  that  is  all  I  want.  But  how  they  have  gashed  you !" 

181 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

He  laughed.  "  Why,  this  is  not  a  patch — literally — 
on  what  I  used  to  get  in  my  early  days.  Makes  me  feel 
quite  young  again." 

"  They  used  to  hunt  you  like  this !  and  I  knew  nothing 
of  it  ?  Ah,  now  I  know  why  you  used  to  cut  yourself  so 
often  in  shaving !" 

"  Why  should  I  bother  you  with  trifles  ?  But  London 
is  becoming  quite  provincial.  This  never  happened  to 
me  before  in  London.  It  must  be  those  caricatures.  Bolt 
the  door  somebody,"  he  said,  as  the  groans  for  the  Prophet 
Petty  Cash  recommenced  outside. 

"  It  serves  you  right — you  shouldn't  fly  in  everybody's 
face.  No  wonder  they  fly  in  yours.  You  object  to  war, 
and  you  get  it  at  your  own  door." 

"  As  long  as  I  don't  get  it  inside  my  door,"  he  laughed, 
kissing  her.  "  Come,  dear,  you  shall  help  me  dress. 
Don't  look  so  glum,  Allegra.  Go  and  tell  the  girls  I'll  be 
ready  in  a  jiffy." 

Allegra  ran  up  with  a  lighter  heart,  and  found  Dulsie 
and  Mabel  sitting  white-faced  on  the  sofa,  grasping  each 
other's  hand  desperately.  "  Father's  all  right,"  she  pant- 
ed. "  Mother  saved  his  life.  But  where  is  Joan  ?"  she 
added  in  alarm. 

"  Upstairs,  shutting  all  the  front  shutters,"  Mabel 
moaned. 

She  glanced  at  the  now  shuttered  windows.  "  Have 
they  been  throwing  more  stones  ?"  One  smashed  against 
a  shutter  as  she  asked,  and  the  shattered  glass  rattled  be- 
hind it.  Her  alarm  returned.  "  The  dining-room !"  she 
cried. 

"  They're  always  shut  before  we  feed,"  Dulsie  wailed. 

"  Are  they  ?"  Allegra  had  never  noticed  it.  She  ran 
down  to  make  sure,  and  found  Joan  instructing  the  page- 
boy to  slip  out  by  the  back  garden  door  and  run  to  the 
police  station. 

"  And  don't  dodge  any  policemen  you  meet  on  your  way, 
you  little  idiot.  Send  them  here  too." 

"  Yes,  miss." 

182 


"THE  CROWD   DREW  BACK' 


WAR 

"  Here !  Come  back — you  can't  go  without  your  over- 
coat in  this  weather!" 

Despite  the  weather  the  crowd  still  lingered,  and  seem- 
ed to  be  swollen  momently,  especially  by  shrill-voiced 
urchins.  And  presently,  as  the  four  girls  waited  in  the 
drawing-room  amid  a  hailstorm  of  stones  and  the  cease- 
less tinkle  of  falling  glass,  the  crowd  struck  up  a  patriotic 
chorus : 

"  Rule,  Britannia.     Britannia  rules  the  waves. 
Britons  never — never — never — shall  be  slaves." 

"  Methinks  they  protest  too  much,"  said  Dulsie,  who 
had  recovered  her  spirits  under  the  expectation  of  Joan's 
police.  "  I  hope  the  Bobbies  will  make  a  good  many 
slaves  to  night." 

"  Yes — they  ought  to  get  hard  labor,  the  brutes,"  said 
Joan  viciously.  "  But  I  suppose  the  police  are  waiting 
till  the  last  pane  in  the  house  is  smashed.  And  that's  your 
Demos,  Allegra,  that  you'd  like  to  see  governing  Eng- 
land." 

"  It's  misgovernment  that  has  made  them  what  they 
are!  There  must  be  Free  Education.  Their  souls  must 
be—" 

"  Their  souls !     They've  got  no  souls." 

"  Oh,  really,  Joan.  Every  human  being  has  a  soul — 
a  spark  of  God." 

"  A  spark  of  God !"  Joan  snorted.  "  These  beery 
savages !  Listen  to  'em." 

"  But  surely  you  don't  believe  God  has  left  Himself 
out  of  any  soul  ?" 

"  He  has  left  Himself  out  of  mine,"  said  Joan  calmly. 

"  What !"  Allegra  stared  at  her  in  horror.  "  You 
don't  believe  in  God  ?" 

"  I  hear  the  word  often  enough — I  see  no  signs  of  the 
reality. ' 

"  And  the  immortality  of  the  soul  ?" 

"  On  a  par  with  Gwenny's  hell.  We're  just  a  lot  of 
little  ants  running  about." 

183 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Then  how  can  you  live  on  ?"  Allegra  asked,  awe- 
stricken. 

"  Oh,  I  can  just  run  about  with  the  rest.  Go  to  the  ant 
and  be  wise — isn't  that  what  Gwenny  says  ?" 

"  You  silly  children !"  interrupted  Dulsie.  "  This 
isn't  the  time  to  talk  theology." 

"  What  then  is  it  the  time  to  talk  ?"  Joan  retorted 
scathingly.  "  Anthropology  ?" 

Here  the  great  clock  chirped  nine. 

"  No !  Dinner !"  laughed  Dulsie.  "  I've  forgotten 
I'm  starving." 

"  I  couldn't  have  eaten  anything,  anyhow,"  whimpered 
Mabel,  prostrate  on  the  sofa.  "  Now — I  think  I'll  go  to 
bed." 

A  terrific  rat-a-tat-tat  and  a  ringing  at  the  bell  resound- 
ed even  above  the  patriotic  clamor.  Mabel  sprang  up, 
glowing  with  life.  "  There's  Arthur.  He  said  he'd  try 
to  come !"  Then,  with  a  change  of  voice,  "  Oh,  I  hope 
they  won't  hurt  him." 

"  Not  if  they  know  he's  a  lord,"  said  Joan  sarcasti- 
cally. 

The  knocking  went  on  and  on,  as  if  keeping  time  with 
the  crowd's 

"  Tow-row-row-row-row-row, 
To  the  British  Grenadier." 

"  Well,  why  don't  they  open  the  door  ?"  cried  Mabel  im- 
patiently. 

"  I  suppose  they're  afraid,"  said  Joan.  "  They  think 
it's  only  the  roughs." 

"  He'll  go  away,"  Mabel  whined. 

The  ringing  recommenced. 

"  I'll  run  down  and  let  him  in,"  said  Allegra,  with  an 
impulse  of  girlish  curiosity  and  sisterly  kindness. 

"  No,"  said  Joan.     "  You  may  get  hurt." 

But  Allegra  was  already  half  down  the  stairs.  She 
pushed  through  the  trembling  maid-servants.  "  Who  is 
it  ?"  she  cried  cautiously  through  the  door. 

184 


WAR 

"  Only  me,"  came  a  strong  voice.  Allegra's  heart  leapt 
up.  She  felt  a  sudden  sense  of  security.  Here  was  re- 
enforcement,  here  safety. 

She  opened  the  door  and  Broser  slipped  in,  accompa- 
nied by  a  waft  of  cold  air  and  a  louder  burst  of  song.  He 
shot  the  bolts  again  swiftly,  hardly  looking  at  her  and  not 
even  removing  his  hat  till  the  door  was  secured. 

Meantime  she  saw  that  his  hands  were  scratched,  his 
face  was  flushed  and  perspiring,  his  tie  and  collar  were 
crumpled.  She  took  his  umbrella  and  his  hat  and  his 
overcoat.  They  had  never  spoken  to  each  other  before, 
but  this  was  no  time  for  conventionalities. 

"  I  hope  you  are  not  hurt  ?"  she  said. 

"  This  is  nothing  to  the  football  scrimmages  at  Mid- 
stoke.  I  see  they've  broken  your  windows.  I  hope  that's 
all?" 

"Practically  all.  Only  Petty  Cash,"  said  AJlegra 
with  a  bright  smile. 

"  Ruffians !"  He  clinched  his  fist  and  looked  dangerous. 
She  noticed  there  was  a  telegram  in  his  hand.  "  For  your 
father,"  he  said,  smoothing  it  out.  "  The  boy  gave  it  me 
at  the  gate — he  couldn't  get  through — fortunately  he  knew 
me.  I'll  run  up  to  the  study  at  once.  Nine  o'clock,  your 
father  told  me,  I  was  to  knock  off  some  letters." 

Allegra  smiled.  Her  mother  had  plotted  clumsily. 
Lord  Arthur  would  not  have  seen  much  of  his  future 
father-in-law. 

"  He  hasn't  dined  yet — he  is  dressing.  You  must  dine 
with  us."  She  thought :  "  Lucky  there's  Lord  Arthur's 
cover." 

"  In  this  state  ?"  he  queried  ruefully,  looking  into  the 
hall  mirror.  "  Not  dressed,  and  not  straightened  out 
— and,  to  tell  the  truth,  not  hungry.  Mrs.  Broser  and  I 
dine  early  for  the  sake  of  the  little  ones." 

"  Then  you  can  call  it  supper."  She  rather  wondered 
at  her  own  insistence,  especially  as  her  mother  had  not 
yet  invited  Mr.  Broser  to  her  London  table. 

185 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  It  depends  on  whether  your  father  has  work  for  me 
to  do,"  he  replied. 

"  Well — you  must  wait  for  him  in  the  drawing-room, 
anyhow,"  she  said,  turning  to  mount  the  stairs  and  catch- 
ing sight  of  the  impatient  Mabel  at  their  head.  "It's 
only — it's  Mr.  Broser,"  she  called  up.  Poor  Mabel  disap- 
peared. From  without  came  the  stentorian  chant : 

"  Britannia,  the  pride  of  the  ocean, 
The  home  of  the  brave  and  the  free." 

"  How  long  have  they  been  howling  ?"  asked  Broser. 

"  It  seems  an  eternity — but  I  suppose  it's  only  a  bad 
quarter  of  an  hour.  We  have  sent  for  the  police." 

"  They  deserve  a  cavalry  regiment.  How  did  it 
begin?"' 

"  They  seem  to  have  followed  father."  His  face  of 
horror  pleased  her.  She  assured  him  hastily :  "  He's  only 
a  little  cut  about  the  face." 

He  looked  thunders.  "  Was  it  those  blackguards  in  the 
garden  ?"  He  made  as  if  to  unbolt  the  door. 

"  No,  no,"  she  cried,  torn  between  alarm  and  admira- 
tion. 

His  hand  dropped.  "  England  shall  rue  this,"  he  mut- 
tered. 

The  sentiment  did  not  seem  to  her  disproportionate  to 
the  occasion  or  the  speaker,  set  as  it  was  to  the  turbulent 
music  without.  She  tingled  with  electrical  excitement, 
feeling  herself  in  the  thick  of  history  and  face  to  face 
with  an  immortal  who  would  make  it.  Her  eyes  shone, 
her  breast  heaved. 

"  You  do  not  know  my  name,  Mr.  Broser,"  she  said 
gayly,  as  they  mounted  the  stairs.  "  I  have  the  advantage 
of  you." 

He  laughed.  "  You  have  many  advantages  over  me, 
but  not  that.  Do  you  suppose  I  did  not  hear  of  Allegra 
all  day  long  at  The  Manor  House  ?" 

Her  name  in  his  mouth  gave  her  a  curious  thrill. 

186 


WAK 

"  Ah,"  she  smiled,  "  but  I've  seen  you  and  you've  never 
seen  me !" 

"  What !  How  about  Midstoke  station  ?  And  do  you 
think  I  didn't  take  another  peep  at  you  in  the  Town 
Hall?" 

"  How  silly  I  am !  Of  course !"  She  blushed  deeply, 
remembering  he  had  started  the  cheers  for  her  when  the 
train  came  in.  And  from  without,  in  strange  ironic  con- 
trast, came  the  rousing  chorus : 

"Hurrah  for  the  Red,  White,  and  Blue! 
Three  cheers  for  the  Red,  White,  and  Blue! 
Thy  banners  make  tyranny  tremble 
When  borne  by  the  Red,  White,  and  Blue." 

"  You  hear  ?"  he  said.  "  They  are  cheering  again  for 
you.  The  red,  white,  and  blue." 

She  flushed  deeper,  becoming  conscious  that  she  wore 
a  blue  frock  and  a  pretty  one. 

"  Then  the  other  line's  for  you,"  she  retorted. 

" '  Thy  banners  make  tyranny  tremble.'  " 

"  Thank  you !     I  wish  they  did." 

Mr.  Broser  certainly  did  not  make  Joan  tremble.  She 
inquired  sternly :  "  Why  didn't  you  go  for  the  police  ?" 

Disconcerted,  he  stammered  that  he  ought  to  have  done 
so.  Then  he  pleaded  the  telegram. 

There  seemed  now  a  vast  multitude  in  the  street,  aug- 
mented by  curiosity  and  the  love  of  fun,  not  dangerous, 
yet  not  to  be  easily  dispersed,  even  if  the  police  were 
already  there,  as  was  probable.  The  melody  changed  to 
"  God  save  the  Queen." 

"  Ah,  thank  Heaven !"  cried  Dulsie.  "  They  are  wind- 
ing up." 

"  I'm  afraid  they're  only  beginning,"  said  Broser. 
"  Ah,  here  is  the  hero-martyr,"  as  husband  and  wife  came 
in.  "  How  do  you  feel,  sir  ?" 

187 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Hungry.  We  shall  have  a  musical  dinner,"  said 
Marshmont,  smiling  through  sticking-plaster. 

"  You'll  have  a  ruined  dinner,"  Mrs.  Marshmont  burst 
forth.  "  You  ruin  everything  with  your  politics." 

Allegra's  face  became  one  glow  of  anger  and  shame. 
Could  her  mother  not  restrain  herself  even  in  the  presence 
of  this  outsider  ?  Must  she  humiliate  the  Prophet  before 
his  own  disciple  ? 

"  I  think,  mother,"  she  said  quietly,  "  this  must  be  the 
proudest  moment  of  father's  life."  She  took  her  father's 
hand,  and  as  she  felt  his  warm  response,  a  wave  of  pas- 
sionate happiness  swept  away  her  anger.  He  withdrew 
his  hand  to  receive  the  telegram  from  Broser.  The  crowd 
had  returned  to  its 

"  Tow-row-row-row-row-row, 
To  the  British  Grenadier." 

"  That's  appropriate,  anyhow,"  laughed  the  ex-Minis- 
ter, as  he  tore  open  the  telegram,  "  for  I  heard  a  rumor 
in  the  lobby  as  I  left  the  House — I  don't  know  how  true 
it  is — that  the  Grenadiers — "  He  paused,  and  the  flesh 
of  his  face  changed  almost  to  the  hue  of  the  plaster. 

Mrs.  Marshmont  gave  a  terrific  shriek :  "  My  boy  is 
dead!" 

"  No,  no !"  he  stammered,  trying  to  hide  the  telegram. 
Then,  hopelessly,  "  It  is  very  good  of  the  War  Office  to 
let  us  know." 

The  spiritual  darkness  that  can  be  felt  descended  on  the 
room.  Fear  for  the  mother  strengthened  the  rest.  There 
was  one  breathless  moment  in  which  they  waited  for  her 
shrieks.  But  no  shrieks  came.  She  sank  down  on  her 
arm-chair,  moaning  dazedly:  "My  Tom,  my  baby-boy." 
She  had  been  immeasurably  more  violent  at  the  death  of 
the  rat,  yet  nobody  felt  this  calmer  mood  a  relief. 

Her  husband,  the  tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  knelt  at 
her  side.  "  He  died  bravely,  Mary,"  he  said  hoarsely. 
"  In  an  unrighteous  cause — but  he  helped  to  end  the  war, 

188 


WAE 

thank  God.     He  fell  in  the  last  victorious  charge.     It  is 
all  over." 

"  Yes,  it  is  all  over,"  she  repeated  dazedly.  "  How  hot 
it  is!" 

Then  her  eyes  closed  and  her  head  fell  back. 

"  Open  the  window !  Give  her  some  air !"  said  her 
husband.  He  picked  up  a  fleecy  shawl  and  threw  it  over 
her,  Broser  ran  to  pull  back  the  shutters,  Allegra  dart- 
ed in  futile  search  of  smelling-salts,  and  Joan  turned  the 
gas  lower.  "  What  are  you  doing,  Joan  ?"  inquired  her 
father. 

"  Won't  attract  stones,  keeps  the  room  cooler,"  she  re- 
plied laconically. 

Broser  had  no  need  to  raise  the  window-sash:  the  cold 
air  dashed  through  every  broken  pane.  A  dull  red  glare 
leapt  up  fitfully  without.  Dulsie  and  Mabel  shrieked, 
and  Mrs.  Marshmont  opened  her  eyes. 

"  It's  nothing,"  Broser  reassured  them  bitterly  from 
the  window.  "  They  are  only  burning  you  in  effigy, 
sir." 

"  Ah,  the  witches !"  said  Mrs.  Marshmont.  "  I  knew 
one  who  made  an  image  of  a  man  in  wax  and  burnt  it. 
She  lived  in  a  hut  in  the  mountains,  and  a  stream  danced 
down  past  her  door.  How  cold  it  is  I  Y  mae  hiraeth 
arnaf  am  fy  ngwlad!"  ("  There  is  a  longing  on  me  for 
my  country.") 

The  mood  of  the  crowd  outside  seemed  to  have  changed. 
Its  vocal  unanimity  had  lapsed  into  a  disordered  rumor, 
through  which  now  penetrated  the  jubilant  antiphonal 
cries  of  two  news  -  vendors.  "  The  Sultan  killed." 
"  Complete  Kout  of  the  Enemy."  "  Dragoons  in  at  the 
Death."  "  End  of  the  War."  For  an  instant  longer  the 
dull  chaos  continued,  then  it  evolved  into  a  mighty  cheer, 
renewed  again  and  again,  till  the  house  seemed  to  shake 
in  a  gale.  And  then  "  God  save  the  Queen "  started 
afresh,  really  a  finale  this  time,  for  the  gratified  mob  be- 
gan to  move  off  as  they  sang.  Mrs.  Marshmont,  too,  rose 

189 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

and  began  to  walk  to  the  door,  like  a  somnambulist.  The 
others  gazed  after  her,  scarce  daring  to  address  her,  as 
though  to  wake  her  were  fatal. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  sweetest  ?"  her  husband  whis- 
pered. 

"  To  the  nursery,  fanwylyd,"  she  answered. 

They  all  followed  her,  breathless,  up  the  stairs  and  into 
the  statesman's  study  with  its  litter  of  Blue  Books  and 
papers.  The  bullfinch  set  up  an  ecstatic  piping  at  sight 
of  its  master,  but  none  heeded  it.  Mrs.  Marshmont  went 
over  to  the  faded  rocking-horse  in  the  corner,  and  stooped 
to  caress  its  ragged  mane. 

"  He  rode  on  you,"  she  said,  "  my  little  Tom."  Sud- 
denly she  caught  sight  of  the  tin  soldiers  underneath  it, 
and  with  a  cry  of  rage  she  stamped  on  them,  making  the 
horse  rock  violently.  "  You  killed  him !"  she  said.  "  You 
killed  my  Tom !" 

They  could  not  tell  whether  this  was  sanity  or  insanity. 
Her  husband  encircled  her  waist  with  his  arm. 

"  Come,  darling,  you  must  come  away." 

She  threw  off  his  arm  violently  and  he  staggered 
against  the  table. 

"  Murderer !"  she  screamed.  "  You  let  him  go.  You 
sent  him  to  the  shambles.  And  you,  you  pack  of  girls, 
why  do  you  stand  round  me  ?  Do  you  come  to  gloat  over 
my  grief  ?  To  exult  that  you  are  alive,  while  my  boy  is 
dead  ?  I  hate  you."  She  burst  through  them,  and  flung 
open  the  window ;  and  leaning  out  above  the  deserted  gar- 
den behind  the  house,  shrieked  into  the  blackness  of  the 
night:  "Tom!  Tom!" 

Joan  flew  to  her,  and  clutched  her  gown.  "  You  will 
fall  out !"  she  cried. 

Mrs.  Marshmont  turned  fiercely  on  her,  and  thrust  her 
against  the  high  nursery  fender,  bruising  her  side. 

"  I  don't  want  you.  I  want  my  son.  What  right 
have  all  of  you  to  be  alive  and  my  boy  dead  ?  Bring  me 
my  son !" 

190 


WAR 

"  Yes,  mother,"  said  Joan,  bravely  mastering  the  pain 
of  her  bruise.  "  We  will  send  for  Jim." 

"  Yes,  bring  me  Jim !  Quick !  quick !  or  your  father 
will  be  killing  him,  too.  Go,  why  don't  you  go  ?" 

Gwenny  came  and  took  her  hands  and  held  them,  mur- 
muring to  her  in  Welsh.  Mrs.  Marshmont  broke  into  sobs, 
and  then  the  two  women  wept  in  each  other's  arms. 

"  And  this  is  war,"  murmured  Allegra,  too  numbed  for 
tears.  The  images  of  a  dashing  young  Dragoon  overflowing 
with  life  and  gayety,  and  of  a  distorted  dead  lump,  strove 
with  each  other. 

"  Yes,  multiplied  by  thousands,"  said  a  deep  -  toned 
tremulous  voice  at  her  ear.  She  turned  and  saw  that 
tears  were  rolling  down  Broser's  face.  To  see  a  man  weep 
loosened  her  own  tears,  and  unconsciously  her  hand  went 
out  to  his,  with  a  little  pressure,  half  of  gratitude,  half  of 
consolation. 

"  But,  please  God,  we  shall  make  an  end  of  war,"  she 
said,  while  the  walls  with  their  childish  pictorial  scraps 
blotted  themselves  out  in  mist. 

His  clasp  became  as  the  iron  grip  of  a  solemn  com- 
pact. "  Yes,  we  shall  make  an  end  of  war." 

The  bullfinch  gushed  out  its  little  heart  in  joyous  ap- 
peal. Outside,  the  National  Anthem  was  dying  away  in 
the  distance. 

"  Send  her  victo-rious, 
Happy  and  glo-rious." 

The  bell  rang  again.  It  was  Lord  Arthur,  bringing 
the  eager  flush  of  young  love  into  the  house  of  death. 


CHAPTEE   XVII 
DARK   DAYS 

A  SEVERE  cold,  caught  by  Mrs.  Marshmont  in  her 
~L\~  bare-shouldered  sortie,  helped  the  household  to  tide 
over  the  first  days  of  bereavement.  The  bustle  of  doc- 
tors and  medicines,  as  for  a  physical  ill,  was  a  diver- 
sion even  to  the  patient.  But  her  mind  was  only  fitfully 
stirred  from  its  daze,  its  continuous  brooding  on  the  dead. 
Even  the  fetching  of  Jim  from  school  did  not  rouse  her 
as  had  been  anticipated,  and  she  remained  indifferent  to 
the  no  less  unwonted  presence  of  Connie  with  the  crowing 
infant,  whose  recent  advent  had  made  her  a  grandmother. 
One  happy  break  in  her  stagnation  had  come  when  the 
heart-felt  letter  of  condolence  from  her  Majesty  was  read 
to  her,  and  she  had  almost  as  much  pride  in  the  unex- 
pected letter  from  the  Duchess  of  Dalesbury,  envying 
her  the  noble  son  she  had  borne  for  her  country's  service. 
This,  the  first  overture  from  her  husband's  family,  prob- 
ably helped  to  save  Mrs.  Marshmont's  reason,  and  she 
faithfully  drank  the  accompanying  six  bottles  of  port- 
wine  and  six  bottles  of  tar-water  and  ordered  her  mourn- 
ing-dress to  be  made  from  the  great  piece  of  black  silk. 
The  Duchess  gave  funeral-presents  as  other  people  give 
birthday  and  wedding  presents.  She  also  put  up  a  brass 
in  Hazelhurst  Church  to  the  memory  of  the  young  hero, 
whom,  however,  she  insisted  on  spelling  Marjorimont. 
His  old  school-fellows  put  up  another  tablet  at  Harrow, 
and  as  John  Bull  could  afford  to  be  generous  in  victory, 
there  was  a  reaction  in  Marshmont's  favor.  "  Tom  has 
died  for  father,"  thought  Allegra  striving  to  extract 
some  comfort  as  she  read  Tom's  letters,  which  came  with 

192 


DARK    DAYS 

weird  regularity  for  a  few  weeks  after  his  death  and  had 
to  be  kept  from  the  poor  woman  to  whom  they  were  ad- 
dressed. Their  enthusiasm  for  England's  empire  re- 
newed Allegra's  feeling  of  the  perversion  of  heroic  forces. 
One  of  them  had  a  gruesome  description  of  the  slow  but 
sure  action  of  the  weapon  to  which  he  was  destined  soon 
to  serve  as  target — the  Novabarbese  poisoned  arrow.  An- 
other Marjorimont  had  also  died,  in  the  interests  of 
British  West  ISTovabarba,  Limited,  no  less  a  person  than  the 
Viscount  of  that  name,  the  heir  of  the  Earldom  of  Yeoford, 
leaving  an  old  father  and  a  young  son  to  lament  him. 

"  If  poor  Stanley  had  not  had  a  little  boy,"  the  Duch- 
ess wrote  to  Allegra,  "  your  father  would  have  become 
the  heir.  The  poor  Earl,  your  father's  uncle  and  mine, 
has  taken  his  little  grandson  to  live  with  him.  That 
young  life  is  more  precious  than  ever  now,  but  I  pray 
God,  the  old  Earl  will  live  many  a  long  year,  for  I  hate 
to  see  baby  Earls.  Yet  even  a  baby  Earl  is  better  than 
no  Earl.  And  no  Earl  is  better  than  no  baby.  I  mean 
if  it  had  happened  to  be  a  girl.  I  could  wish  my  darling 
Minnie  had  been  a  boy,  but  it  is  useless  repining." 

That  last  sentence  was  a  side-light  upon  the  Duchess, 
revealing  a  flaw  in  the  perfection  of  her  contentment. 
Allegra  liked  her  aunt  better  for  this  shade  of  nearness 
to  common  humanity;  though  it  was  not  till  years  later 
that  she  understood  how  the  Duchess  lived  under  the 
shadow  of  a  possible  eclipse,  should  the  Duke  die.  Not 
only  his  love,  but  Rosmere  and  the  other  beautiful  places 
would  be  taken  from  her ;  such  are  the  risks  and  drawbacks 
of  Duchessdom. 

All  through  Mrs.  Marshmont's  illness,  Broser  proved 
himself  an  indefatigable  handy  man  about  the  house, 
so  that  even  Joan's  prejudices  began  to  melt.  He  hov- 
ered around  Thomas  Marshmont  as  protectively  as  Marsh- 
mont  around  his  wife.  Mabel  one  day  declared  that  the 
bullfinch  was  growing  jealous  of  Broser. 

"  Look  how  it  hisses  at  him  and  flutters  its  feathers." 

193 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  That's  not  from  jealousy,"  Dulsie  said  promptly. 
"  It's  because  Broser's  masquerading  as  father." 

And  indeed,  in  the  almost  constant  attendance  of  the 
ex-Minister  at  his  wife's  bedside  —  a  devotion  that  was 
facilitated  by  the  arrival  of  the  Parliamentary  recess — 
Marshmont's  political  position  necessarily  devolved  upon 
his  secretary.  Broser  received  his  master's  constituents, 
and  answered  most  of  his  letters  on  general  principles, 
without  even  troubling  the  poor  bedside  watcher.  Marsh- 
mont's own  nerves  were  breaking  down,  his  throat  was 
growing  worse,  and  more  twinges  of  his  hereditary  gout 
were  being  paid  over  to  him,  but,  with  some  vague,  re- 
morseful sense  of  having  sacrificed  his  wife  to  his  career, 
he  now  felt  he  must  sacrifice  his  career  to  his  wife.  He 
tried  to  combine  the  two  ideals  by  scribbling  a  political 
pamphlet  in  the  sick-room,  and  this  Allegra  copied  out 
neatly  in  the  study,  verifying  the  figures  and  the  quota- 
tions by  the  aid  of  Mr.  Broser.  This  throwing  together 
of  the  twain  in  the  garret  kindled  Gwenny's  concern. 
She  spoke  of  it  to  the  father  at  last. 

"The  mistress  would  not  like  it,"  she  said,  "if  she  knew." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about,  Gwenny  ?  She's  quite 
a  child." 

"  Then  she'd  be  better  at  a  Children's  Communion. 
But  she's  no  child,  and  she's  quite  taken  with  that  young 
man." 

"  Pooh,  pooh !     He's  a  married  man  with  children." 

"  The  devil  isn't  only  at  the  ear  of  bachelors." 

Marshmont  smiled  sadly.  "  Mr.  Broser  knows  how 
to  deal  with  devils." 

"  Yes,  he'd  outdevil  'em,"  admitted  Gwenny. 

"  You're  getting  a  foolish  old  thing,  Gwenny.  Mr. 
Broser  is  a  gentleman." 

"  If  he  was  a  lady,  I  wouldn't  have  spoken,"  and  toss- 
ing her  head,  Gwenny  retired  to  the  kitchen  to  pray  for 
the  devil's  discomfiture.  Probably  she  mixed  him  up 
with  Mr.  Robert  Broser. 

194 


CHAPTEK   XVIII 
BOB    BROSER 

MR.  ROBERT  BROSER,  with  whom  this  history  is 
increasingly  concerned,  had  at  least  one  quality  in 
common  with  Joan.  His  vision  of  life  was  simple  and  di- 
rect. Change  as  it  might  from  year  to  year,  it  was  never 
blurred  by  doubts  or  metaphysics,  or  even  by  remembrance 
of  its  own  mutations,  or  by  expectation  of  future  develop- 
ments. When  he  married  Susannah  Clagg,  it  was  per- 
fectly clear  to  him  that  he  was  doing  exceedingly  well 
in  loving  a  richly  dowered  young  lady  of  higher  social 
position  than  his  own,  for  though  to  the  aristocrat  in  his 
balloon  all  these  midland  middle  -  class  manufacturing 
families  might  have  appeared  monotonously  flat,  yet  to 
themselves  they  were  an  Alpine  world,  chaotically  peak- 
ed. In  the  social  atlas  of  Midstoke  all  these  heights 
and  valleys  lay  marked  with  that  microscopic  exactitude 
which  makes  a  mountain  out  of  every  mole  -  hill.  No 
consideration  of  birth,  connection,  calling,  or  income  was 
too  minute  for  registration,  and  Broser,  as  the  son  of 
one  of  those  geniuses  of  the  soil  who  are  born  in  a  hut, 
spend  their  days  in  a  factory  built  by  themselves,  and 
end  them  in  a  mansion  built  by  a  nobleman,  was  hamper- 
ed in  his  aspirations  by  his  father's  aspirates.  If  the 
young  bridegroom  on  the  day  he  scaled  one  of  the  higher 
peaks  of  Midstoke  was  aware  that  elsewhere  in  the  great 
wonderful  world  were  Himalayas  that  outdid  even  the 
highest  of  his  Alps,  these  ranges  had  not  come  under  his 
own  eye,  nor  challenged  his  own  foot. 

He  lived  four  years  of  ample  satisfaction  with   his 

195 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Susannah,  marred  only  by  the  death  of  one  of  the  four 
children  she  bore  him.  Then  the  demon  of  unrest  enter- 
ed into  his  soul. 

Old  Broser  had  kept  his  boys  down  almost  to  his  own 
early  pecuniary  level,  much  as  in  higher  circles  a  man 
who  has  suffered  tortures  as  a  fag,  sends  his  sons  to  the 
same  public  school.  Besides,  the  old  peasant  had  in 
exaggeration  the  general  Midstoke  desire  to  "  cut  up 
well,"  and  the  imaginary  posthumous  satisfaction  of  daz- 
zling Midstoke  by  the  revelation  of  his  hoard  overcame 
even  his  repugnance  to  the  Legacy  Duties,  which  would 
make  his  death  so  expensive. 

Now,  realizing  that  he  had  to  wait  until  his  father's 
death  for  financial  independence,  Broser  began  to  grow 
tired  of  his  prosaic  position  in  his  father's  business,  and 
in  the  petty  church  and  parochial  matters  of  Midstoke, 
and  to  yearn  for  a  larger  field  for  his  militant  instincts. 
He  had  always  been  connected  with  a  local  Radical  asso* 
ciation,  and  now  he  began  to  push  himself  forward  more 
and  more  in  its  affairs.  Even  Susannah's  people  were 
Radicals,  having,  like  the  rest  of  Midstoke,  succumbed  to 
the  spell  of  Bryden,  and  realized  that  the  manufacturers 
were  left  out  of  the  distribution  of  political  power.  When 
but  a  lad,  Broser  had  thrown  himself  headlong  into  the 
Cause,  steeped  himself  in  polemic  literature,  discovered 
his  grievances,  and  added  to  them  by  daily  study,  till  he 
grew  to  hate  bitterly  the  classes  that  had  monopolized 
power.  For  as,  after  his  marriage,  his  social  vision 
widened,  and  the  Himalayas  dawned  upon  his  ken, 
their  soaring  summits  seemed  to  abase  him  to  the  plain, 
and  forgetting  his  own  peak,  he  demanded  that  every 
hill  should  be  laid  low  and  every  valley  exalted;  yea, 
even  that  the  crowned  apex  of  all  should  be  smitten  to 
the  dust.  Monarchy  was  an  outworn  superstition.  Divine 
right  was  only  an  impertinent  synonym  for  human  wrong. 
It  was  human  right  that  must  be  the  watchword  of  the 
future.  The  peerage  was  a  brainless  diseased  crew,  de- 

196 


BOB   BROSER 

scended  from  royal  favorites.  The  House  of  Lords  was 
a  relic  of  mediaeval  barbarism.  The  House  of  Commons 
was  the  happy  hunting-ground  of  the  idle  rich,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  world's  workers.  The  army  and  navy 
were  run  as  branches  of  Society,  and  the  governmental 
departments  were  constellations  of  cousins.  For  the  poor 
man  only  one  function — to  pay  for  it  all.  The  social 
system  was  simply  disguised  slavery.  The  helotry  was 
the  depositary  of  virtue.  But  the  People  would  no  long- 
er be  content  with  virtue's  reward.  Bryden's  prophetic 
vision  had  reached  to  one  man,  one  vote — there  lay  the 
last  horizon  of  Radicalism.  Broser  and  the  boon  com- 
panions of  his  political  intoxication  saw  endless  perspec- 
tives of  progress,  even  unto  that  last  Utopian  Holland 
dotted  with  grazing  equals. 

For  himself,  too,  Broser  began  to  see  perspectives  of 
progress — beyond  this  narrow  provincial  society  which 
had  begotten  him  and  had  so  satisfied  his  energies  that 
he  had  never  been  to  London,  except  as  a  youth  in  his 
teens  to  see  the  Great  Exhibition.  It  was  from  this  very 
narrowness,  this  intense  living,  that,  all  unsuspecting, 
he  drew  the  strength  which  now  drove  him  forward  to  im- 
pose himself  upon  a  wider  world.  But  Broser  was  not 
so  popular  with  his  colleagues  as  he  was  with  his  au- 
diences, who  had  only  to  sway  to  his  intellect  and  emo- 
tion. His  colleagues  had  to  bend  to  his  will.  He  was 
a  screw-steamer  amid  sailing-vessels,  ploughing  his  way 
straight  ahead  regardless  of  wind  or  weather.  It  was 
as  President  of  the  Young  Men's  Radical  Association 
that  he  had  proposed  the  vote  of  thanks  to  Marshmont, 
though  the  meeting  was  really  under  the  auspices  of  an 
older  organization.  But  years  before,  when  a  famous 
writer  had  come  to  read  from  his  works  before  this  same 
Y.  M.  R.  A.,  Broser,  who  was  then  only  a  member  of  the 
Committee,  equally  insisted  on  making  the  speech  which 
should  introduce  the  writer  to  the  audience.  His  claim 
was  that  he  was  President  of  the  Literary  Section,  and 

197  . 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

as  such  practically  the  President  on  this  literary  occa- 
sion. But  the  real  President  of  the  Association  refused 
to  surrender  his  privilege  of  introducing  the  great  man. 
It  was  a  nice  point.  Weeks  of  excited  wrangling  through- 
out the  Club  heralded  the  coming  of  the  star,  and  even 
when  he  came,  the  point  had  not  been  decided.  Broser 
and  the  President  were  still  arguing  it  when  the  celebrity 
stood  on  the  small  stage  behind  the  curtain.  Before  it, 
the  audience  was  stamping  its  feet  with  impatience.  The 
disputants  appealed  to  the  celebrity. 

"  But  it  is  too  delicate  a  question  for  me  to  decide," 
he  said,  in  dismay. 

"  But  surely  it  is  obvious,"  cried  Broser,  "  that  the 
President  of  the  Literary  Section — " 

"  But  the  reading  is  for  the  whole  Club,  not  for  the 
Literary  Section  only,"  said  the  President.  "  Every- 
body expects  me  to  introduce  you,  sir." 

The  clapping  and  stamping  became  louder. 

"  Gentlemen,  gentlemen,"  appealed  the  celebrity, 
"  don't  make  me  lose  my  reputation  for  punctuality." 

"  Yes,  the  Club  must  not  lose  its  reputation  for  punc- 
tuality," said  Broser  to  the  President.  "  The  curtain 
must  be  rung  up  instantly.  Have  the  goodness  to  walk 
to  the  wing,  Mr.  President,  leaving  me  to  be  discovered 
with  our  illustrious  guest." 

"  I  shall  do  no  such  thing.  On  such  red-letter  occasions 
the  President  must  surely  be  in  the  chair.  The  position 
of  our  guest  demands  no  less." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  not  be  insulted,"  said  the  celebrity 
genially.  Then,  quaking  under  the  President's  eye,  "  I 
mean,  don't  consider  me  in  the  least." 

"  It  will  be  a  great  blow  to  the  Literary  Section  if  I 
don't  preside,"  said  Broser. 

The  celebrity  had  a  happy  thought. 

"  Well,  why  can't  one  of  you  introduce  me  at  the 
beginning  and  the  other  thank  me  at  the  end?" 

The  waiting  public  became  clamorous. 

198 


BOB   BROSER 

"  Our  audiences  don't  like  to  be  kept  waiting  after  the 
reading,"  said  the  President. 

"  They  don't  seem  to  relish  it  before,"  said  the  celeb- 
rity grimly. 

"  Then  suppose  we  neither  take  the  chair,"  Broser  sug- 
gested sulkily.  The  celebrity,  in  his  relief  at  the  sug- 
gestion, overlooked  the  grammatical  inelegance  of  the 
President  of  the  Literary  Section. 

"  Even  that  would  be  better  than  the  President's  seem- 
ing to  fail  in  respect,"  said  the  President  of  the  Asso- 
ciation in  general. 

"  It  seems  to  me  a  fair  compromise,"  observed  the  ce- 
lebrity anxiously,  for  the  audience  was  by  now  furious. 

"Very  well,"  said  Broser.  "We'll  both  leave  the 
stage.  Ring  up." 

The  man  at  the  right  wing  began  to  pull  up  the  cur- 
tain. The  President  hurried  to  the  left  wing.  As  the 
curtain  rose,  Broser  was  discovered  in  the  centre  of  the 
stage.  The  celebrity  hovered  in  the  background.  As 
soon  as  the  applause  died  down,  Broser  introduced  the 
great  man  in  a  few  brief  phrases,  and  went  off  to  join 
the  fuming  President  at  the  wing. 

"  But  you  did  introduce  him !"  hissed  the  latter. 

"  I  suggested  neither  of  us  should  occupy  the  chair," 
replied  Broser  coolly.  "  I  am  not  occupying  it.  It  is 
yawning  vacantly — thanks  to  your  obstinacy." 

"  But  you  introduced  him." 

"  Those  few  words  cannot  be  considered  a  speech.  I 
had  to  throw  overboard  all  that  the  Literary  Section  ex- 
pected me  to  say  about  our  illustrious  visitor."  And 
he  looked  so  aggrieved  that  the  President  felt  apologetic. 
But  his  rage  returned  the  next  morning  when  he  found 
that  the  newspapers  reported  that  Mr.  Robert  Broser 
"  introduced  the  famous  writer  in  a  few  well  -  chosen 
words." 

Nor  was  Broser  more  popular  with  the  members  for 
Midstoke.  The  great  Bryden  had  politely  rejected  all 

199 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

his  social  overtures,  without,  however,  diminishing  Bro- 
ser's  admiration  for  his  eloquence  and  comparative  bold- 
ness, and  Mrs.  Broser  subscribed  handsomely  to  the  bust. 
When  the  Right  Honorable  Thomas  Marshmont  came 
to  Midstoke  to  unveil  it,  Broser  was  thrilled  with  the 
greatness  of  the  man  and  the  hour,  and  strove  enthusiasti- 
cally to  secure  an  important  speech  in  so  momentous  a 
ceremonial.  When  he  offered  his  fealty  to  the  Minister 
and  besought  the  great  man  to  use  him,  his  desire  thus 
to  get  into  touch  with  the  great  world  was  redeemed  from 
sordidness  by  the  halo  which  surrounded  this  world,  as 
of  a  rallying-ground  for  the  forces  which  move  mankind, 
and  which  he  would  use  to  lift  the  People.  For  indeed 
there  were  wings  under  his  provincial  frock-coat,  a-quiver 
to  burst  their  sheath  and  spread  to  the  breeze  of  advent- 
ure. It  was  not,  however,  till  he  had  forced  himself 
upon  the  gentle  Marshmont  and  accompanied  him  to  The 
Manor  House  that  he  began  to  be  aware  that  his  Susannah 
would  burden  those  wings  oppressively  on  their  upward 
strain.  A  certain  gaucherie  stamped  her  as  other  clay 
than  the  radiant  Dulsie  and  Mabel,  and  though  her  anaem- 
ic personality,  as  neutral  as  the  tint  of  her  pale  hair, 
had  hitherto  satisfied  his  need  of  an  idolatress  needing 
protection,  he  began  to  feel  that  an  idolatress  at  home 
but  an  idol  abroad  were  the  happier  combination.  Her 
worshippers  would  have  supplemented  his,  and  her 
known  worship  of  him  would  have  exalted  his  public 
personality,  besides  adding  a  subtle  sweetness  to  her  pri- 
vate incense.  And  apart  from  this,  there  was  the  neces- 
sity for  adequate  behavior  in  the  higher  social  groups 
among  which  his  mission  for  human  brotherhood  would 
take  him.  He  himself  was  equal  to  any  fate,  had  bound- 
less intelligence  and  adaptability,  but  how  about  poor 
Susannah  ?  Broser  had  moments  of  heart  -  sickness  in 
the  thought  of  how  his  life-work  might  be  impeded  by 
her. 

His  father  had  not  brought  him  up  to  the  cult  of  the 

200 


BOB   BROSER 

morning  tub,  jet  when  he  had  found  a  cold-water  bath 
in  his  room  at  The  Manor  House,  he  had  instantly  under- 
stood— where  Susannah  would  have  betrayed  herself — 
and,  even  before  he  had  schooled  himself  to  endure  it,  he 
had  had  the  wit  to  splash  the  water  over  the  floor  with 
his  hands,  so  that  the  servants  should  not  suspect. 

When  it  was  settled  by  the  doctors  that  Marshmont 
must  take  Mrs.  Marshmont  abroad  to  divert  and  rouse 
her  mind,  Broser  with  vague  foresight  of  diplomatic 
circles  had  likewise  the  wit  to  throw  cold  water  on  his 
wife's  enthusiasm  for  foreign  travel,  pleading  the  chil- 
dren. When  Marshmont  in  his  turn  declared  that  he 
would  not  need  Mr.  Broser,  as  he  must  devote  himself 
body  and  soul  to  his  wife,  Broser  proved  to  him  that 
this  was  the  very  reason  he,  Broser,  was  needed.  The 
great  leader  must  not  let  go  the  thread  of  politics.  It 
would  save  him  from  depression,  and  the  country  from 
degeneration. 

Nevertheless  Marshmont,  in  his  dejection  at  the  death 
of  Tom  and  the  backsliding  of  the  Radical  party,  and  in 
the  uncertainty  of  the  duration  of  his  wife's  illness,  did 
offer  to  resign  his  seat,  but  his  constituents  refused  to  sur- 
render him.  After  all  they  enjoyed  the  reflex  of  his  im- 
portance, not  least,  perhaps,  when  he  was  unpopular.  Let 
him  take  a  long  holiday  by  all  means.  And  so  Thomas 
Marshmont,  M.P.,  travelled  hither  and  thither  on  the  Con- 
tinent, and  Broser  developed  into  an  admirable  courier, 
who,  though  he  had  not  the  gift  of  tongues,  was  never 
dumfounded  or  discountenanced,  but  ploughed  his  stolid 
British  way  through  mediaeval  cities,  ancient  catacombs, 
and  complicated  currencies.  He  packed  the  luggage  and 
took  the  railway  tickets  and  was  never  cheated  at  the 
booking-offices,  even  in  Italy.  He  made  the  journey  as 
smooth  as  a  good  sea-passage,  though  Gwenny,  who  acted 
as  the  invalid's  maid,  refused  to  budge  from  her  preju- 
dices against  him.  But  over  Marshmont  his  ascendency 
grew,  the  more  subservient  he  became.  To  the  filial  note 

201 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

of  the  young  man,  the  elder  responded  with  the  pater- 
nal. He  tried  to  mend  the  gaps  in  Broser's  culture,  to 
direct  his  reading  in  English,  to  improve  his  style  and 
his  taste,  and  generally  to  teach  him — what  others  ac- 
cused Marshmont  himself  of  forgetting — that  the  human- 
ities were  as  important  as  books  of  information. 

By  which  teaching  the  late  President  of  the  Literary 
Section  of  the  M.  Y.  M.  R.  A.  profited  eagerly.  In  par- 
ticular he  skimmed  the  English  poets  from  Chaucer  to 
Deldon,  so  as  on  his  return  to  have  to  pretend  less  before 
Allegra's  allusions.  But  even  more  profitable  was  the 
teaching  which  he  received  as  unconsciously  as  it  was 
given.  His  manners  improved  by  involuntary  assimila- 
tion; and  his  private  voice  grew  distinct  from  his  public 
voice.  Add  the  equally  unconscious  broadening  given  by 
travel,  and  Broser's  tour  will  be  seen  well  worth  his  rail- 
way and  hotel  bills.  Indeed  no  young  nobleman  of  the 
ancient  time  ever  had  a  better  chance  of  meeting  eminent 
personages,  though  Marshmont's  visitors  were  mainly  Con- 
tinental Radicals  come  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  English 
prophet,  turned  sick-nurse,  and  Broser  could  only  occasion- 
ally snatch  the  centre  of  the  stage  and  exchange  political 
views  with  them  as  at  par. 

As  he  heard  himself  talk,  Broser  felt  himself  more  than 
ever  equipped  for  membership  of  the  House  of  Commons. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

"THE    HOUSE" 

UNTIL  he  came  to  London  from  The  Manor  House, 
Broser  had  never  seen  the  House  of  Commons.  On 
the  night  of  Marshmont's  impeachment  of  the  Government 
he  saw  it  for  the  first  time  and  in  all  its  feverous  glory. 
And  his  emotion  was  one  of  surprise  at  the  smallness 
of  the  historic  chamber. 

"  Is  this  the  mighty  ocean — is  this  all  ?" 

A  small  oblong  room,  with  rows  of  dark  green  benches 
neatly  parted  in  the  middle,  crowded  with  men,  lolling 
and  wearing  their  hats  as  in  a  tap-house.  Why,  to  speak 
here  was  nothing,  to  one  who  had  forced  his  personality 
upon  the  ultimate  bench  of  great  halls.  One  could  hold 
this  in  the  hollow  of  one's  hand.  The  Prime  Minister? 
Just  that  gray-haired  gentleman  sitting  by  the  table! 
The  Treasury  Bench — was  it  only  a  common  form,  on 
which  you  sprawled,  nursing  your  knee  ?  And  the  Op- 
position? You  just  sat  on  the  other  side  of  the  table 
and  shook  your  fist  across  ?  If  you  were  a  Minister,  you 
rose  and  looked  disdainful:  you  took  a  step  forward  and 
banged  a  brass-bound  box  on  the  table.  Why,  in  these 
small  spaces  politics  was  almost  a  personal  encounter: 
it  had  nothing  of  the  rotund  magnificence  of  platform 
publicity.  And  as  the  speaking  went  on,  as  these  Lon- 
don gladiators  buffeted  one  another,  as  historic  names 
turned  out  to  be  channels  for  "  hems  "  and  "  ha's,"  and 
historic  gray-beards  mumbled  and  stumbled,  poring  pain- 
fully over  pages  of  notes,  the  provincial  heavy-weight  in 

203 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

the  gallery  looked  down  on  it  all  with  an  actual  sense  of 
superiority,  in  lieu  of  the  awe  he  had  expected  to  feel. 
And  when  they  did  get  a  man  who  could  speak — when 
Marshmont  rose  to  his  feet  to  denounce  the  Novabarbese 
campaign — lo!  these  cowardly  champions  of  War  howled 
him  down.;  hitting  him  below  the  belt,  so  to  speak. 
Broser's  blood  boiled.  Oh,  to  be  in  Marshmont's  place 
down  there !  How  he  would  smite  these  Philistines  hip 
and  thigh ! 

Parliament  had  for  years  been  in  his  mind  as  a  final 
ambition.  Now  the  dream-like  remoteness  of  it  faded : 
it  became  a  workaday  thing,  a  practical  possibility  on  the 
near  horizon.  Bah!  he  could  easily  dazzle  and  amuse 
some  constituency  into  electing  him.  And  then — look 
out,  you  down  there!  He  grasped  his  umbrella  tighter, 
as  great  streams  of  energy  ran  through  his  every  limb. 
The  Front  Bench  did  not  seem  so  far  ahead.  These  old 
fogies  and  middle-aged  nonentities  on  the  back  benches, 
one  could  brush  them  aside  as  one  sweeps  through  a  crowd 
to  catch  a  train.  And  the  immemorial  corruptions,  how 
he  would  sweep  through  them,  too !  Nothing  should  awe 
him  any  more,  not  the  Throne  itself.  He  had  seen  what 
this  Parliament  was — just  the  debating  society  of  the  Mid- 
stoke  Young  Men's  Radical  Association  over  again,  and 
far  less  brilliant,  instructive,  and  expeditious.  The  As- 
sociation settled  the  country's  affairs  in  a  fourth  of  the 
time.  Ay,  the  House  was  a  "  soft  job,"  as  they  said  up 
North.  And,  unknown  to  himself,  a  smile  of  complacency 
softened  his  strong  features. 

His  chance  came  sooner  than  even  he  had  dared  to  ex- 
pect. One  of  the  members  for  Midstoke — he  who  had 
presided  at  the  war  demonstration — applied  for  the  Chil- 
tern  Hundreds,  having  been  appointed  to  a  Colonial  post 
in  recognition  of  his  services  during  the  crisis.  The  news 
reached  Broser  in  Naples,  where  Mrs.  Marshmont  had  had 
a  relapse,  literally  brought  on  by  the  bare  ribs  and  sore 
flanks  of  the  unhappy  cab-horses  that  toiled  under  the 

204 


"THE   HOUSE" 

radiant  blue.  But  in  a  few  days  Broser  had  persuaded 
everybody  that  they  were  longing  to  return  to  England. 

"  O  to  be  in  England,  now  that  April's  there  !" 

he  read  to  them  from  Browning — one  of  the  few  lines  he 
understood.  Gwenny  needed  no  such  reminder  of  the  su- 
periority of  England.  The  images  of  Catholicism  had 
combined  with  the  discomforts  of  hotel  life  and  long  rail- 
way journeys  to  disgust  her  with  travel.  Gwenny  under- 
stood pauper  emigration,  but  the  rich  nomad  puzzled  her. 

"  O  ma'am,"  she  said  to  Mrs.  Marshmont,  "  I  can't 
understand  why  people  with  money  should  want  to  travel." 

Broser  admitted  candidly  that  he  himself  was  bit- 
ten by  the  idea  of  going  back  to  restore  Midstoke  to  its 
senses.  He  would  put  up  for  the  vacancy:  otherwise — 
who  knew  ? — a  Tory  might  even  creep  in.  Unless,  of 
course,  Marshmont  could  not  spare  him  temporarily. 

"  But,  my  dear  Broser,  I  must  come  down  and  help 
you." 

"  No,  no,  sir ;  you  have  already  done  more  than  I  can 
ever  repay." 

But  Mrs.  Marshmont  pined  for  the  English  country- 
side, and  the  old  war-horse,  her  husband,  yearned  for  bat- 
tle, and  shared  Broser's  fears  for  the  metropolis  of  Radi- 
calism. 

So  they  all  went  home,  and  the  name  of  Broser  became 
temporarily  famous  as  that  of  the  most  startling  of  the 
triangular  duellists  in  a  fiercely  contested  election.  For 
a  section  of  the  Radicals,  mistaking  dislike  of  Broser's 
personality  for  distrust  of  his  too  advanced  programme, 
brought  forward  a  more  moderate  candidate  in  opposition, 
and  this  split  in  the  camp  giving  the  Tory  minority  the 
very  chance  Broser  had  professed  to  dread,  a  Tory  can- 
didate was  put  up  in  the  hope  the  two  Radicals  would  neu- 
tralize each  other.  The  more  moderate  Radical  styled 
himself  in  his  election  address,  "  a  humble  follower  of 
Bryden."  As  Broser  styled  himself  "  a  humble  follower 

205 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

of  Marshmont,"  the  latter  had  the  pain  and  bewilderment 
of  feeling  himself  somehow  opposed  to  his  old  comrade- 
in-arms,  as  well  as  entangled  with  opinions  more  icono- 
clastic than  he  had  ever  professed.  But  he  was  borne 
along  on  the  current  of  Broser's  and  Allegra's  enthusiasm. 

For  Allegra,  who  had  reattached  herself  to  her  father's 
person,  drove  about  the  fiery,  sooty  town,  canvassing 
dubious  voters  and  preaching  the  doctrine  of  Broser  to 
them  with  a  convincing  play  of  pretty  eye  and  lip.  She 
felt  that  at  last  she  had  entered  the  world  of  action,  and 
was  no  longer  open  to  Joan's  scorn  for  the  unpractical. 
Midstoke  itself  with  its  slag  heaps  and  its  polluted  river, 
into  which  steam-jets  hissed  from  factory  walls,  grew  dear- 
er and  diviner  than  Rosmere — from  this  strenuous  ugli- 
ness should  spring  the  future's  gospel  of  light.  Even 
the  h-less  old  Broser  was  glorified  to  her  eyes  as  the  rug- 
ged progenitor;  though  she  found  it  difficult  to  persuade 
him  that  there  was  something  after  all  in  his  Bob's  opin- 
ions. The  world  was  all  right,  he  argued  obstinately: 
a  man  with  gumption  could  always  get  on,  while  loafers 
and  drinkers  must  go  to  the  wall.  In  the  stress  of  all 
this  polemics,  Allegra's  shyness  began  to  wear  off;  by 
the  end  of  the  campaign  she  could  almost  have  spoken 
at  the  hustings.  She  was  not  allowed  to  go  to  the  meet- 
ings, for  they  were  often  riotous. 

When  the  poll  was  declared,  alas!  the  Tory  was  on 
top  and  Broser  at  the  bottom!  The  seat  was  lost  to  the 
party,  Marshmont's  prestige  was  seriously  undermined, 
and  Mrs.  Marshmont's  condition  had  grown  worse  than 
ever  through  this  ill-advised  return  to  England.  But  no 
one  thought  of  blaming  Broser.  Everybody  was  too  busy 
condoling  with  him  and  admiring  the  brave  face  he  put 
on  misfortune,  and  his  proud  prophetic  speech  to  the 
crowd.  "  I  am  young,"  he  said.  "  The  abuses  I  challenge 
are  old.  Yet  neither  I  nor  they  can  wait.  If  not  from 
Parliament,  then  from  the  house-tops  I  will  cry  against 
them,  till  they  crumble.  Midstoke,  to  which  Bryden  and 

206 


"THE   HOUSE" 

Marshmont  brought  the  sacred  torch  of  light,  has  chosen 
darkness.  But  the  light  will  shine  on,  and  in  shining 
burn  away  the  historic  shams,  the  antiquated  feudalisms 
which  stifle  and  cripple  us. 

"Ay,  it  must  come  !    The  Tyrant's  throne 

Is  crumbling,  with  our  hot  tears  rusted ; 
The  Sword  earth's  mighty  have  leant  on 

Is  canker'd  witli  our  heart's  blood  crusted. 
Room !  for  the  men  of  Mind  make  way  ! 

Ye  robber  Rulers,  pause  no  longer  ; 
Ye  cannot  stay  the  opening  day  ; 

The  world  rolls  on,  the  liglit  grows  stronger, 
The  People's  Advent's  coming." 

"  Yes,  the  future  is  yours,"  cried  Allegra,  rapt  from 
her  gloom. 

This  proved  to  be  Marshmont's  last  public  campaign 
for  more  than  a  year.  Worried  by  money  affairs  and  his 
wife's  tragic  helplessness,  which  but  for  Joan's  cheerful 
activity  would  have  made  his  home  utterly  unendurable, 
he  seldom  went  to  the  House,  unless  for  an  important 
division.  His  pioneering  had  to  be  done  by  the  pen, 
and  Fizzy  had  induced  him  to  let  the  Morning  Mirror 
have  the  first  benefit  of  his  pamphlets  instead  of  publish- 
ing them  at  once  independently.  Fizzy's  cheques  in  pay- 
ment were  as  handsome  as  his  adjectives,  but  whilst  he 
did  not  repudiate  all  responsibility  for  the  latter,  he  de- 
clared that  complaints  against  the  former  must  be  ad- 
dressed to  his  editor.  "  You  don't  suppose  an  editor 
would  overpay  a  contributor !  It  is  you,  my  dear  fellow, 
who  are  ignorant  that  your  stuff  is  worth  its  weight  in 
gold.  You  are  like  the  late  Sultan  of  Novabarba,  poor 
chap,  who  gave  away  a  province  for  a  pound  of  tea  or  a 
barrel  of  beer.  Some  day  you  would  be  finding  it  out, 
and  you  would  begin  to  kick.  Then  I  should  send  out 
my  office-boys  against  you,  and  annex  all  your  other  pam- 
phlets. No,  no,  don't  let  us  lay  the  train  of  war." 

A  by-product  of  this  generous  policy  was  Mabel's  mar- 

207 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

riage  to  Lord  Arthur  Pangthorne,  in  defiance  of  the  heads 
of  both  families:  to  wit,  the  Marquis,  and  Joan.  Fizzy 
further  found  a  place  for  the  bridegroom  as  assistant 
bailiff  on  his  estates,  for  the  young  aristocrat  had  had 
some  experience  on  the  broad  lands  that  would  come  to 
his  brother,  and  preferred  the  post  to  sheep-farming  in 
New  Zealand. 

"  Younger  sons  are  the  salt  of  the  peerage  and  the  sal- 
vation of  the  system,"  said  Fizzy  at  the  wedding-break- 
fast. "  If  the  estate  was  left  to  the  eldest  son,  and  the 
title  to  the  youngest,  we  should  have  a  House  of  Lords 
which  even  I  shouldn't  want  to  sweep  away." 

This  wedding  brought  a  needed  touch  of  color  into  the 
life  of  the  Marshmonts,  and  proved  better  than  Italy  for 
Mrs.  Marshmont.  She  tried  to  disguise  it  from  Joan, 
but  she  was  vastly  proud  of  having  given  birth  to  a  Lady 
Arthur,  and  her  retrospective  vision  saw  this  child  of  hers 
as  if  gilded  from  the  cradle.  She  felt  Lord  Arthur  more 
as  a  son  than  Connie's  husband,  and  had  wild  unspoken 
hopes  that  a  grandson  of  hers  would  some  day  somehow 
arrive  at  the  Marquisate. 

As  if  this  influx  of  new  blue  blood  had  tinged  Broser's 
thoughts  too,  he  expressed  a  wish  to  see  a  famous  political 
salon — like  Lady  Huston's.  That  lady  had  been  exces- 
sively amiable  to  Marshmont  since  he  had  retired  from 
the  Ministry,  and  readily  sent  Broser  a  card  at  his  re- 
quest. Besides,  she  had  a  faint  curiosity  to  see  the  roar- 
ing Radical  of  nine  days'  notoriety.  Both  Marshmont 
and  Broser  forgot  about  Mrs.  Broser,  while  Lady  Huston 
remembered  to  forget  her,  having  had  experience  of  the 
wives  of  rising  politicians.  But  she  found  one  peep  at 
the  newfangled  monster  enough :  he  was  not  to  her  sensi- 
tive nostrils.  Poor  Lord  Huston,  however,  with  his  mud- 
dled memory  for  faces,  and  that  incapacity  to  recognize 
his  own  henchmen  which  sometimes  changed  the  history 
of  England,  imagined  that  the  young  man  strutting  about 
so  masterfully  must  be  a  son  of  one  of  his  tame  dukes. 

208 


"THE   HOUSE" 

"  How  is  your  father  ?"  he  asked.  It  was  his  stock 
question  for  young  men,  though  occasionally  he  blundered 
upon  an  orphan.  The  gratified  Broser  replied  that  his 
father  was  perfectly  well,  and  would  be  delighted  to  hear 
that  Lord  Huston  had  inquired  after  him. 

"  Well,  we  old  fellows — a  fellow  feeling,  eh  ?"  said  the 
great  man  with  genial  vagueness. 

"  I  trust  your  lordship  does  not  suffer  from  age,"  re- 
plied Broser  with  his  best  society  manner. 

He  was  proud  and  flattered,  yet  at  the  same  time  his  crit- 
ical eye  was  analyzing  this  historic  person,  without  whom 
no  Cabinet  was  complete,  and  seeing  only  an  amiable  non- 
entity whom  he  was  sure  he  could  smash  in  fair  debate. 
As  Lord  Huston  turned  away  to  welcome  a  new  guest  with 
a  non-committal  remark  about  the  weather,  Broser  felt 
angry  to  think  how  this  titled  mediocrity  had  found  all 
gates  flying  open  before  him,  while  he,  Broser,  was  rejected 
of  the  town  he  had  served  so  faithfully. 

Ah,  those  miserable  Midstokers.  How  they  would 
gnash  their  teeth  when  the  Right  Hon.  Robert  Broser 
was  sitting  for  a  constituency  which  was  other  than 
theirs!  But  never  would  he  go  back  to  them,  never, 
though  seven  manufacturers  plucked  at  his  coat-tails. 
Let  them  live  on  the  memory  of  their  Bryden.  Yes, 
perhaps  it  was  better  he  should  stamp  himself  upon  a  vir- 
gin town.  It  would  not  do  for  a  young  author  to  settle 
at  Stratford-on-Avon. 

Nevertheless,  when  the  opportunity  came,  Broser  was 
glad  enough  to  divide  the  honors  with  Marshmont.  For  it 
was  as  the  junior  member  for  the  Ilazelhurst  district 
that  Broser  forced  the  portals  of  the  House.  The  death 
of  the  Tory  squire  from  apoplexy  had  given  the  chance 
of  converting  the  whole  constituency  to  Radicalism.  The 
squire's  election  had  been  a  form  of  feudal  homage  to  his 
family.  But  he  left  no  heir,  and  the  new  Tory  candidate 
represented  only  political  opinions.  Marshmont's  local 
influence  and  Allegra's  sweet  smiles  were  enough  to  secure 

209 


THE   MANTLE   OF  ELIJAH 

the  victory,  denied  at  Midstoke;  and  sponsored  by  such 
celebrities  as  William  Fitzwinter  and  the  ex-Minister, 
Robert  Broser,  M.P.,  stalked  proudly  past  the  Sergeant- 
at-arms,  and  took  the  oath  of  fealty  to  that  Majesty  it  was 
understood  he  purposed  to  destroy.  For  his  platform 
had  already  attracted  some  attention,  thanks  mainly  to  his 
having  contested  two  by-elections:  when  the  super  of  the 
general  election  occupies  the  centre  of  the  stage.  And, 
thrilling  with  this  dramatic  self  -  consciousness,  feeling 
tvery  inch  the  "  Fighting  Bob  "  he  had  already  been  nick- 
named, Broser  made  his  first  appearance  in  the  historic 
Chamber  much  as  young  author  or  painter  enters 
his  first  salon.  The  hostess,  past  whose  gracious  vision 
all  the  gods  of  the  era  have  defiled,  looks  with  kindly 
curiosity  at  the  young  man,  but  he  enters  with  the  convic- 
tion that  she  is  abased  at  his  feet  and  that  every  eye  is 
watching  his  entry. 

Broser  had  made  up  his  mind  that  his  maiden 
speech  should  be  Amazonian.  He  would  not  catch,  the 
Speaker's  eye  coyly.  Not  for  him  the  perfunctory  ap- 
plause of  an  encouraging  House.  He  would  be  a  person- 
ality from  the  start.  Of  course  he  would  follow  Marsh- 
mont — even  in  the  sense  of  letting  him  speak  before  him, 
but,  though  he  would  mount  on  Marshmont's  shoulders, 
it  must  be  seen  from  the  first  that  he  had  a  head  of  his 
own. 

Fortune  gave  him  an  opening.  There  was  a  question 
of  a  Parliamentary  grant  to  a  relative  of  the  Crown.  Bre- 
ser  girded  up  his  loins  to  smite  the  Court  hip  and  thigh. 
He  would  unveil  the  expense  of  keeping  a  Royal  Family. 
He  would  crystallize  the  vaporous  Republicanism  that 
floated  up  from  the  lowly  places  of  the  People.  He  would 
import  into  English  politics  the  French  or  American 
accent. 

He  arranged  to  give  his  first  London  party  in  honor  of 
his  first  speech,  and  carefully  instructed  Mrs.  Broser. how 
to  comport  herself.  The  good  creature  was  ready  enough 

210 


"THE   HOUSE" 

to  be  rid  of  her  provincialisms,  save  in  the  matter  of  Sun- 
day, at  the  loose  observance  of  which  in  metropolitan  Radi- 
cal circles  she  remained  obstinately  shocked.  In  Midstoke 
the  sexes  had  a  way  of  accentuating  themselves  by  separa- 
tion. The  women  would  herd  at  one  end  of  the  drawing- 
room,  the  men  at  the  other,  or  quite  by  themselves  in  a 
card-room  or  a  smoking-room.  When  the  Brosers  received, 
the  host  had  been  the  pervasive  spirit,  not  the  hostess. 
At  the  Hustons'  Broser  had  observed  with  astonishment 
the  deference  paid  to  the  Lady.  He  was  sorry  he  had  not 
taken  his  wife  about,  so  that  she  should  observe  the  de- 
portment she  was  now  called  upon  to  imitate. 

"  Don't  be  surprised  if  gentlemen  converse  with  you," 
he  warned  her,  "  and  try  to  say  something  sensible  in  re- 
turn." 

"  But  I  don't  know  anything  about  politics,"  said  Mrs. 
Broser  timidly. 

"  Well,  talk  about  me.    That  will  always  interest  them." 

"  Ah,  I  wish  I  was  like  Allegra  Marshmont.  She  is 
so  clever  she  would  know  what  to  say.  And  must  I  stay 
all  the  time  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  ?" 

"  Yes,  and  smile  all  the  time." 

"  All  the  time  ?"  she  repeated  in  alarm. 

"  On  everybody  and  at  everything  ?" 

"  And  mustn't  I  go  down  a  few  steps  even  to  meet  the 
Marshmonts  ?" 

"  Good  gracious,  no !  That  you  must  do  only  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  And  he's  not  likely  to  come — after  my 
speech !"  He  laughed  sardonically. 

"  I  should  like  to  see  the  Prince  of  Wales,"  said  Mrs. 
Broser  irrelevantly. 

"  Pooh !"  said  her  husband.  "  Do  you  suppose  he  looks 
any  different  from  me  ?  A  fig  for  your  Royalties !" 

And  this  was  the  text  of  his  sermon  to  the  House.  But 
after  the  first  few  sentences,  even  the  indulgent  kindliness 
of  the  House  to  a  new-comer  gave  way  to  a  growing  sense 
of  outrage.  Interruptions,  groans,  hisses,  cries  of  "  'Vide, 

211 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

'Vide,"  sprang  up  to  divert  the  roaring  stream  of  oratory. 
But  over  all  these  hinderances  Broser  passed,  foaming; 
stirred  to  fresh  vigor.  He  must  outshout  the  House,  if 
only  that  Allegra,  up  there  behind  the  grille,  should  not  be 
cheated  out  of  hearing  him.  They  should  not  brow-beat 
him,  these  fossilized  representatives  of  the  comfortable 
classes.  He  knew  their  prejudices.  Marshmont,  who  had  no 
glory  even  in  the  war  of  words,  to  whom  it  was  a  pain  to 
provoke  well-meaning  folk,  had  done  his  best  to  moderate 
his  disciple.  But  Broser,  despite  his  residuum  of  rever- 
ence for  his  master,  felt  there  was  need  of  a  terrible  truth- 
ful Goth  to  trample  through  their  lace-work  of  conven- 
tions. He  was  not  to  be  bamboozled  by  their  stained- 
glass  windows,  their  mediaeval  mummeries  of  robe  and 
wig  and  hour-glass,  of  ushers  and  Black  Rods,  of  swords 
and  maces,  and  cocked  hats.  The  hot  blood  of  the  down- 
trodden glowed  in  him :  he  felt  himself  the  incarnation  of 
the  People,  rising  in  leonine  majesty  and  shaking  the  bars 
of  its  cage.  In  truth  Broser  was  the  conduit  through  which 
there  at  last  arrived  in  the  House  that  crude  flood  of 
thought  that  had  carried  the  intelligent  artisan  off  his  feet : 
all  that  irreverent  challenging  of  Throne  and  Church 
which  divided  with  sensational  crimes  the  columns  of  the 
People's  journals ;  all  the  righteous  resentment  of  the  scan- 
dals of  high  life  and  extravagances  of  Courts  in  implicit 
contrast  with  the  blameless  purity  of  the  British  working- 
man  ;  all  that  stream  of  pamphlets  and  leaflets  and  poems 
and  pasquinades  which  had  become  the  scriptures  of  a 
discontented  Demos,  the  gospels  of  a  movement  not  without 
religious  sincerity. 

But  even  Broser  with  all  the  strength  of  his  lungs  and 
of  his  apostolic  conviction  could  not  outbellow  the  throat  of 
the  House,  and  the  cock-crow  of  a  young  Tory  blood 
threw  everybody  into  convulsions.  In  vain  Broser  ges- 
ticulated and  thundered:  Parliament,  he  found,  was  not 
the  Midstoke  Y.  M.  R.  A.  There  was  borne  in  upon  him 
a  gloomy  perception  that  he  had  underrated  the  forces  of 

212 


"THE   HOUSE" 

the  fossils.     But,  he  told  himself,  they  were  underrating 
him,  too ;  they  should  yet  hang  upon  his  lips. 

He  went  on  impatiently  to  the  end,  through  all  the 
clamor,  though  in  pure  pantomime,  and  resumed  his  seat 
amid  a  pandemonium  of  derisive  cheers.  Yet  he  was  not 
utterly  cast  down.  A  copy  of  his  speech — minus  only  the 
few  impromptus,  extorted  by  opposition,  but  in  compensa- 
tion punctuated  with  "  Cheers  " — was  already  in  type  at 
the  Morning  Mirror  and  Hazelhurst  Herald,  and  the  coun- 
try would  hear  it  all  the  same.  That  the  House  dared 
not  hear  it  was  a  triumph,  not  a  defeat. 


CHAPTEK    XX 
MRS.  BROSER    AT    HOME 

MR.  and  Mrs  Broser  dined  earlier  than  usual  on  the 
evening  of  their  first  London  reception.  It  was  the 
Saturdayevening  following  the  great  unheard  speech.  Mrs. 
Broser  had  begged  for  Wednesday — the  other  political  va- 
cation— so  that  the  festivities  might  not  brim  over  into  the 
Sunday,  but  Broser  had  replied  that  she  must  do  as  Lady 
Huston  did.  To-night  her  uneasiness  returned. 

"  Oh,  I  wish  we  weren't  going  to  break  the  Sabbath." 

"  Don't  begin  that  again.  We  are  not  among  your 
Midstoke  gossips  any  longer." 

"  I  know,  Bob,  but  couldn't  we  finish  at  twelve  ?" 

"  What !     Like  a  public-house  ?" 

Old  Broser  —  tickled  by  Lord  Huston's  solicitude 
as  to  his  health — had  parted  with  a  bin  of  his  oldest 
port  for  the  occasion — and  indeed  would  have  come  up 
himself  to  witness  its  imbibition,  had  Bob  taken  the  hint 
as  readily  as  the  bin.  The  old  fellow  had  become  a  Town 
Councillor,  as  though  catching  ambition  from  his  son,  and 
was  prepared  to  follow  sympathetically  his  boy's  career, 
conducted  at  Mrs.  Broser's  expense.  But  Bob  was  satis- 
fied he  should  follow  it  at  a  distance.  He  was  sipping 
some  of  the  port  now,  holding  it  up  to  the  light  to  admire 
its  color,  and  letting  it  linger  voluptuously  upon  his  pal- 
ate, for  he  loved  the  best  in  wines,  cigars,  meats,  and  fine 
linen,  his  taste  in  such  things  needing  little  refinement  by 
London  society  standards.  But  he  still  cherished  a  fear 
of  those  standards,  and  was  plaguing  his  wife  all  through 
dinner  with  questions  as  to  whether  this  or  that  was  duly 

214 


MKS.    BEOSEK    AT    HOME 

arranged.     He  did  not  observe  how  ill  she  looked  under 
the  strain  and  anxiety  of  this  momentous  evolution. 

The  children  still  sat  at  table  with  them,  Bobby  pris- 
oned in  his  high  baby-chair,  and  the  twins,  Polly  and 
Molly,  aged  seven.  Mrs.  Broser  studied  their  rations  care- 
fully, and  with  morbid  solicitude  cut  up  their  food  and 
her  own  prandial  enjoyment.  They  were  not  handsome, 
even  as  children.  Little  Bobby  Lad  his  father's  high  fore- 
head and  massive  jaw,  Polly  and  Molly  had  pale  faces  and 
strawy  hair,  and  eyes  like  slits.  But  to  Mrs.  Broser  they 
were  marvels  of  beauty  and  intelligence.  Bobby's  pugna- 
cious obstinacy  she  considered  manly  spirit,  while  she  never 
ceased  to  wonder  over  Polly's  and  Molly's  premature  re- 
marks about  adult  things,  which  she  mistook  for  signs  of  gen- 
ius, when  they  were  merely  precociously  commonplace. 

To-night  the  children's  normal  behavior  seemed  to  their 
tensely  strung  father  intolerable  naughtiness,  and  he 
threatened  that  they  should  never  be  allowed  to  eat  with 
their  parents  again. 

"  Then  we'll  give  dinner  parties  ourselves,  in  the  nurs- 
ery," said  Molly. 

Mrs.  Broser  laughed,  but  her  lord  frowned  at  her. 

"  You've  brought  up  these  children  very  badly,  Su- 
sannah." 

"  They  have  been  hearing  so  much  of  this  party,"  she 
said  apologetically. 

"  I  shall  stand  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,"  said  Polly. 

Mrs.  Broser  smiled  with  pleasure.  "  There !  she  catches 
up  everything." 

"  Yes,  they  listen  to  everything,"  he  growled. 

"  Well,  you  were  angry  because  they  wouldn't  listen  to 
you  in  Parliament,"  Molly  protested. 

At  this  point  Bobby  choked,  and  had  to  be  slapped  on 
the  back.  He  had  taken  the  opportunity  surreptitiously 
to  swallow  something  beyond  his  years. 

"  Greedy !  Greedy !"  said  the  mother  admiringly,  when 
he  was  better. 

215 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

After  these  terrible  infants  were  packed  off  to  bed,  Mrs. 
Broser  retired  to  array  herself  for  the  great  evening. 
Broser,  who  was  already  in  his  dress  clothes,  with  a  gar- 
denia in  his  button-hole,  marched  up  and  down  the  recep- 
tion-rooms, feverish  with  energy  and  far-reaching  medita- 
tion. The  rooms  looked  well  to  his  eye — he  had  taken 
a  house  in  a  fashionable  London  square,  and  added  imi- 
tations of  the  Marshmont  drawing-room  to  his  Midstoke 
furniture.  He  could  not  find  so  florid  a  clock,  having 
to  content  himself  with  as  tiny  a  dial,  hidden  between  a 
crablike  foundation  and  a  crown  of  three  Cupids  playing 
with  pigeons.  Nor  could  he  parallel  Mrs.  Marshmont's 
easy-chair  with  the  canine  arms.  But  the  aquiline  side- 
board was  easy  to  emulate,  and  the  general  effect  of  the 
rooms  was  similar.  The  flowers  scattered  everywhere  to- 
night filled  his  heart  with  gay  images.  And  so  he  paced 
and  paced,  lost  in  brilliant  reverie. 

The  chirping  of  the  hour  behind  the  little  dial  roused 
him,  and  he  wondered  impatiently  why  Mrs.  Broser  was 
not  ready.  In  half  an  hour  guests  might  begin  to  arrive, 
and  it  was  her  duty  to  be  dressed  in  that  wonderful  new 
dress,  and  to  give  a  last  look  round  and  final  directions  to 
the  servants.  He  waited  five  minutes  more,  then  he  burst 
into  her  room  without  knocking. 

"  My  dear  Susannah !"  rushed  remonstrantly  from  his 
lips,  ere  he  perceived  that  she  had  been  taken  ill,  half-way 
through  her  toilet,  and  was  lying  prostrate  in  her  arm- 
chair by  the  fire,  groaning,  with  her  maid  standing  by, 
frightened. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?"  he  said  in  a  tone  softer  but  still 
remonstrant. 

"  It's  my  liver  again,  I  suppose,"  she  moaned  apolo- 
getically. 

"  You  mustn't  give  way  to  fancies,"  he  said  encourag- 
ingly. 

Mrs.  Broser  burst  into  tears.  "  Oh  Bob  dear !  It  has 
been  coming  on  all  day." 

216 


MRS.    BROSER    AT    HOME 

"  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  ?  Why  didn't  you  send  for  the 
doctor  ?"  He  turned  on  the  maid.  "  Why  didn't  you  go 
for  the  doctor,  Clara  ?  Don't  you  know  Mrs.  Broser  has 
to  receive  her  guests  ?" 

"  I  can't,  Bob,  I  can't.     Oh!" 

"  But  you  must,  old  lady.  Take  a  dose  of  salts  or  some- 
thing— you'll  be  all  right." 

"  Can't  you  do  without  me  ?  They  won't  miss  me.  Let 
me  go  to  bed." 

"  Go  for  the  doctor,  Clara.  He'll  pull  you  round.  I 
know  I've  often  had  to  have  a  pick-me-up  just  before 
speaking." 

"  No,  don't  go,  Clara.  I  know  exactly  what  he'll  say. 
I've  been  disobeying  all  his  directions  these  last  two  days. 
He'll  only  scold  me." 

"  What !     You've  been  having  the  doctor !" 

"  Don't  be  angry,  Bob.     I  didn't  like  to  upset  you." 

"  Well,  make  an  effort  now,  dearest.  Do,  for  my  sake." 
He  picked  up  the  wonderful  new  dress.  "  There,  dear ! 
I  do  so  want  to  see  how  pretty  you  look  in  it !" 

A  light  leaped  into  Mrs.  Broser's  eyes,  but  died  out  in 
a  spasm  of  pain.  She  hid  the  tempting  frock  from  her 
vision,  covering  her  face  with  her  hands,  and  rocked  her- 
self, moaning  hysterically,  "  I  can't.  I  can't." 

"  Help  her  on  with  it,  Clara.  Come,  Susannah,  just 
pull  yourself  together." 

She  shook  her  head  and  sobbed  out :  "  Don't  you  think  I 
want  to  see  all  your  friends,  dear  ?  Oh,  it  is  very  hard  on 
me." 

"  But  you  mustn't  desert  me  like  this,  darling.  It  will  be 
so  awkward  to  receive  everybody  myself,  when  they're  ex- 
pecting a  pretty  hostess,  and  such  a  nuisance  to  explain 
to  everybody  you're  not  well.  Just  fancy  what  a  heap 
of  questionings  I  shall  have  to  endure.  Come,  Susannah, 
don't  spoil  my  evening.  Brace  up."  He  raised  her  gently, 
and  put  the  frock  on  her  clumsily.  Instinctively  she 
adjusted  it,  and  then  the  maid  fastened  it. 

217 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  That's  all  right,  you  see,"  he  said,  kissing  her.  "  Look 
— look  at  yourself.  Fancy  my  doorway  without  that 
charming  figure.  Bathe  her  eyes,  Clara." 

Invigorated  and  magnetized  by  his  rude  healthy  energy, 
Mrs.  Broser  ceased  to  sob  aloud:  only  her  breast  heaved 
and  fell  while  the  maid  ministered  to  her.  Once  or  twice 
she  drew  in  her  breath  sharply,  as  if  at  a  spasm.  Then, 
when  she  was  all  tricked  out,  and  Broser  was  surveying 
her  complacently,  she  collapsed  suddenly,  and  fell  across 
the  bed,  moaning  afresh. 

"  I  can't,"  she  sobbed,  "  I  can't." 

Broser  was  in  despair.  He  had  set  his  mind  on  paral- 
leling the  Huston  reception  just  as  he  had  paralleled  the 
Marshmont  furniture.  And  without  a  hostess,  his  party 
was  spoiled.  "My  poor  Susannah!  Wait  a  little!  Wait 
a  little!  You  will  feel  better.  Give  her  a  dose  of  her 
medicine,  Clara." 

Clara  measured  out  various  fluids  with  teaspoons,  and 
Broser,  dismissing  her,  forced  the  sufferer  to  swallow  the 
mixture. 

"  There !"  he  said.  "  I'm  sure  you  feel  better.  You 
mustn't  give  way  to  these  morbid  fancies,  darling.  Come, 
stand  up.  That's  right !  I  couldn't  bear  you  to  be  away 
at  the  beginning  of  my  social  career.  It  would  be  such 
a  bad  omen.  Think  of  it  all,  Susannah — this  is  just  the 
opening  out.  Who  knows  how  high  I  shall  go  ?  How 
would  you  like  to  have  me  Prime  Minister  of  England  ?" 

Susannah  smiled  through  her  tears :  "  I'm  afraid  I 
sha'n't  live  to  see  that." 

"  Don't  be  so  sure.  The  House  is  simply  a  mass  of 
mediocrities.  In  ten  years'  time — where  will  they  be  ?  As 
forgotten  as  their  mediaeval  superstitions,  as  dead  LS  Roy- 
alty. In  ten  years  England  will  be  a  Republic.  The  forces 
are  gathering.  I  hear  the  rumble  of  doom.  And  Prime 
Minister  of  England — think  what  that  will  mean  then." 

She  gazed  at  him  in  open-eyed  wonder,  yet  with  more 
of  admiration  than  incredulity.  He  had  got  to  London, 

218 


"  '  i  CAN'T,  BOB,  i  CAN'T  ' " 


MRS.    BROSER    AT    HOME 

he  was  a  Member  of  Parliament.  Yes,  this  glorious  giant 
with  whom  Heaven  had  blessed  her — who  knew  where  he 
would  end  ?  And  he,  swollen  by  his  fantasy,  half  believed 
the  things  he  said  to  inspirit  her,  allowed  latent  thought 
to  express  itself,  as  it  sometimes  comes  to  the  surface  in 
dreams. 

It  was  a  curious  gathering  at  which  he  gazed  complacent- 
ly an  hour  or  so  later — a  rally  of  the  revolutionary  ele- 
ments in  London  that  he  had  knocked  up  against  in  his 
preliminary  survey  of  the  field  of  action :  a  few  M.  P.'s, 
three  editors  of  small  rival  socialist  organs,  two  freethink- 
ing  journalists  who  alternated  between  heavy  metaphysics 
and  jocose  blasphemies,  and  occasionally  debated  in  public 
with  platform  Christians;  some  Continental  exiles,  one 
Russian  Prince  with  a  high  forehead  and  an  imposing 
black  beard;  odd  British  minor  poets  and  musicians,  a 
comedian  accenting  each  feeble  jest  with  the  wink  of  the 
conscious  wit,  a  Malthusian  lecturer  with  a  long  train  of 
daughters,  and  other  drifting  Bohemians.  Despite  his 
glimpse  of  the  Ruston  salon,  these  were  still  the  luminaries 
of  his  own  world,  the  London  stars  of  his  years  of  provin- 
cial enthusiasm,  and  his  superfine  shirt-front  expanded 
with  pride  as  he  looked  round  his  rooms  and  saw  how  they 
were  all  come  to  twinkle  in  his  honor.  Yea,  even  the  great 
Deldon  himself — who  had  shone  in  the  Ruston  firmament 
— was  here,  connecting  the  two  circles.  Ladies,  it  is  true, 
were  in  a  marked  minority,  the  womenkind  of  many  of  the 
guests  being  not  producible.  And  as  Broser  glanced  at 
Mrs.  Broser,  awkward  and  anaemic  at  the  head  of  her 
stairs,  grasping  the  balustrade  as  if  to  steady  herself,  and 
deserted  by  her  male  guests  as  thoroughly  as  at  Midstoke, 
his  satisfaction  waned,  and  he  almost  regretted  he  had  pro- 
duced her  instead  of  adopting  the  pretext  of  her  illness. 
Then  at  least  she  would  not  have  upset  the  "  Camarade  " 
Prince — so  proud  of  his  humility — by  calling  him  "  Your 
Highness  " ;  nor  the  "  resting  "  comedian  by  thanking  him 
for  coming  on  Saturday  night,  "  when  the  theatres  are  so 

219 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

busy."  And  when  her  captious  consort  caught  sight  of 
Allegra  surrounded  by  a  galaxy,  which  included  even 
Deldon,  his  dissatisfaction  with  Susannah  was  dashed 
with  a  shade  of  self  -  discontent.  Why  could  he  not 
have  waited  for  one  of  those  beautiful  brilliant  girls 
who  matched  his  destiny?  Together,  they  would  have 
had  the  world  at  their  feet,  and  trampled  on  it.  True, 
he  could  not  have  hoped  for  an  Allegra  at  this  stage  of  his 
career,  aware  though  he  was  of  the  girl's  interest  in  it  and 
him,  but  he  might  have  fought  to  merit  such  a  mate. 
That  star  could  have  shone  over  his  forward  path.  Now, 
however  high  he  went,  there  would  always  be  a  drag  upon 
him.  That  insignificant  Susannah  with  her  insipid  con- 
versation would  have  to  do  the  honors  of  his  household, 
even  when  he  should  be  a  Cabinet  Minister.  Well,  well,  he 
must  bear  it:  he  could  not  hide  her  away,  now  he  had 
shown  her.  And  after  all  she  was  a  docile  little  person. 
See  how  she  stood  there,  doing  her  best  for  him,  though 
she  was  probably  still  far  from  well.  He  was  really  very 
fond  of  her,  and  when  everybody  was  gone,  he  would  tell 
her  so,  and  she  would  cling  to  him,  murmuring  words  of 
adoration. 

Deldon  was  not  the  only  man  in  Allegra's  magnetized 
group.  The  Professor  was  there,  too,  and  the  Frau  Pro- 
fessorin,  as  the  Otto  Ponts,  the  German  doctor  of  Philos- 
ophy, and  the  partner  of  his  home  and  opinions,  were 
known  among  their  comrades.  They  had  both  migrated 
from  the  Fatherland,  where  the  police  objected  to  their 
point  of  view.  They  spoke  admiringly  of  England  and 
its  freedom,  much  to  Allegra's  surprise,  for,  since  the 
Novabarbese  war,  she  had  come  to  think  her  country  a 
synonym  for  brutality  and  oppression.  There  was  only  a 
slight  German  accent  in  their  tones,  but  a  good  deal  in  their 
thinking.  They  philosophized  and  generalized  and  pigeon- 
holed the  universe.  They  saw  everything  in  large  cycles 
as  points  of  a  mathematical  progression.  Withal  a  glow 
of  intellect,  a  large  breath  of  encyclopedic  knowledge, 

220 


MRS.    BROSER    AT    HOME 

emanated  from  both,  while  the  woman  gave  in  addition  the 
sense  of  a  warm  heart.  They  seemed  to  speak  every  Euro- 
pean language  and  be  familiar  with  every  literature.  These 
were  new  persons  to  Allegra,  and  proportionately  delight- 
ful. Listening  to  them  one  might  learn  much  more  quick- 
ly than  from  books.  You  touched  a  button  and  they  re- 
sponded. They  pleased  her,  too,  by  their  regard  for  Broser 
as  the  coming  man,  though  their  own  opinions  went  even 
beyond  Broser's,  and  made  her  wonder  what  perspectives 
were  left.  They  had  no  religion  but  humanity,  she  per- 
ceived, but  for  that  they  seemed  to  work  fanatically,  ad- 
dressing labor  meetings,  organizing  clubs,  carrying  out 
fatiguing  lecture  tours,  even  as  far  as  America,  like  me- 
diaeval zealots  imposing  upon  themselves  the  penance  of  the 
pilgrimage.  Engrossed  by  these  wonderful  persons,  Alle- 
gra  almost  forgot  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  Deldon.  Was 
it  that  since  she  had  canvassed  voters  and  copied  out  pam- 
phlets, her  admiration  had  somewhat  shifted  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  practical  ?  The  Poet  of  the  People,  however, 
seemed  content  to  worship  at  her  shrine  instead,  and 
begged  permission  to  send  her  a  copy  of  his  new  book:  a 
privilege  which  set  Allegra's  poetic  pulses  leaping  again. 

It  was  past  midnight.  The  party  was  at  its  zenith.  The 
refreshments  had  refreshed  it,  and  the  friendly  babble 
had  reached  that  steady  roar  which  signifies  success.  The 
string  quartet  in  a  recess  had,  partly  in  disgust,  partly 
in  neglect,  given  up  attempting  to  send  their  tinkle  through 
the  din.  A  few  late-comers  in  the  shape  of  writers  on  the 
great  People's  Weeklies  were  still  arriving,  and  explain- 
ing that  they  had  just  put  their  papers  "  to  bed."  And 
poor  Mrs.  Broser,  scandalized  by  their  Sunday  labors  and 
her  own  Sunday  enjoyment,  obediently  smiled  and  smiled 
her  ghastly  smile,  twinges  of  physical  pain  aggravating 
those  of  her  conscience.  Of  a  sudden  the  guests  and  the 
staircase  began  to  whirl  round  her.  With  scarcely  a  cry 
she  loosed  her  grip  on  the  balustrade,  swayed,  and  pitched 
head-forward  down  the  stairs.  An  ascending  Sunday  edi- 

221 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

tor  arrested  her  descent,  and  her  unconscious  face  smiled 
faintly  upon  the  new-comer,  the  muscles  stretched  for 
hours  having  scarcely  relaxed. 

The  exclamations  of  alarm,  the  agitation  around  the 
doorway,  soon  dominated  the  din,  and  in  the  sudden  com- 
parative silence  the  startled  musicians  awoke  to  their  duty 
and  started  a  gay  air  from  a  Donizetti  opera.  No  one 
hushed  them  down,  and  it  was  as  to  a  maladroit  melo- 
dramatic accompaniment  that  Broser  bent  over  his  wife's 
body,  in  wild  alarm. 

"  She  should  have  let  Clara  go  for  the  doctor,"  he 
thought.  "  I  was  a  fool  not  to  have  insisted  upon  it." 
He  was  vastly  relieved  when,  under  the  ministrations  of 
Professor  Otto  Pont — who,  it  appeared,  added  medicine 
to  his  other  acquirements — poor  Susannah  opened  her  eyes 
and  automatically  put  on  her  smile. 

She  was  removed  to  her  bedroom,  her  own  doctor  was 
sent  for  to  assist  Pont,  and  the  party  broke  up  in  confusion 
and  condolence. 

"  Oh,  Bob,"  she  moaned,  "  God  has  punished  me  for 
breaking  the  Sabbath." 

"  Nonsense,  my  poor  Susannah.  At  that  rate  we  should 
all  have  been  punished.  You  just  lie  quiet,  dear.  Dr. 
Wedsmore  will  soon  be  here." 

Her  hand  stole  out  of  the  coverlet  and  took  his.  "  You 
are  not  angry  with  me,  darling,  for  spoiling  your — "  She 
gasped :  a  spasm  of  pain  curtailed  the  sentence. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  die,  Bob  ?"  she  whispered,  with  the 
first  horrible  suspicion  of  the  truth. 

"  Die  ?  No,  no."  His  hearty  contempt  of  the  idea  cheer- 
ed her. 

"  I  do  so  want  to  see  you  Prime  Minister." 

"  You  shall,  old  lady.     Now  lie  still." 

Dr.  Wedsmore  held  out  but  little  hope  to  the  horror- 
stricken  husband.  She  had  been  greatly  weakened  by  child- 
bearing,  and  he  had  warned  her,  he  said,  against  overstrain. 

"  If  she  had  only  told  me !"  moaned  Broser. 

222 


MRS.    BROSER    AT    HOME 

"  Women  don't  tell  their  husbands  everything,"  said 
the  doctor. 

"  Yes,  but  I  was  not  an  ordinary  husband.  I  thought 
there  was  such  confidence  between  us.  I  told  her  every- 
thing— even  to  my  mildest  indisposition." 

As  early  as  Tuesday  the  children  were  brought  to  the 
bedside,  that  they  might  say  "  Good-by  "  while  their  mother 
was  still  conscious. 

The  poor  woman  had  no  illusions  by  this  time;  except 
a  curious  one  which  she  confessed  to  her  husband  on  the 
Monday  night.  Her  imagination  had  been  greatly  exercised 
by  all  she  could  extract  from  her  husband  about  this  mys- 
terious House  of  Commons,  to  whose  headship  he  was  to 
rise,  and  the  cry  of  "  Who  goes  home  ?"  with  which  the 
attendants  closed  the  House  in  the  dead  of  night  had  im- 
pressed her  vividly.  Now  it  haunted  her  sick  fancy,  nulli- 
fied every  reassurance  that  she  would  get  well. 

"  I'm  going  home,"  she  said  obstinately.  "  I  hear  the 
voices  calling  '  Who  goes  home  ?  Who  goes  home  ?' ' 

Broser  shivered.  He  had  a  sense  of  noises  hushed,  lights 
going  out,  the  stepping  into  the  cold  dark. 

"  You  must  get  it  out  of  your  head,  you  foolish  baby," 
he  said  tenderly.  "  You're  only  remembering  what  I  told 
you  about  the  House — the  attendants  crying  out  so  that 
members  in  olden  times  might  go  home  together  as  a  pro- 
tection against  footpads.  It's  only  a  silly  survival — and 
just  as  silly  in  your  mind,  dear." 

"  I  wish  we  could  go  home  together,  Bob,"  she  said  wist- 
fully. 

He  shuddered,  "  Don't  think  of  such  things,  Susan- 
nah. We  are  not  going  home  at  all — we  are  going  to  stay 
in  the  House,  and  be  Prime  Minister.  Eh  ?" 

"  No ;  I  hear  them  calling.  '  Who  goes  home  ?  Who 
goes  home  ?'  But  I  shall  find  little  Susie  at  home,  thank 
God.  I  did  not  thank  Him  when  He  took  her.  But 
now  I  see  His  goodness.  How  lonely  I  should  have 
been!" 

223 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

When  she  took  farewell  of  her  living  little  ones,  Broser 
broke  down  and  blubbered  like  a  child,  while  the  children 
themselves  were  comparatively  stoical. 

"  Bobby  will  be  good,  and  never  be  noisy  on  Sunday," 
she  admonished  the  youngest.  "  Then  God  will  bless 
him.  My  darlings,  I  will  think  of  you  all  day  in 
Heaven." 

"  You  mustn't  go  there  yet,  mother,"  said  Polly.  "  We 
are  not  grown  up  yet." 

"  Nurse  will  smack  us,"  added  Molly.  "  You  mustn't 
go,  mother." 

"  It  is  God's  will,  darlings.  He  does  all  things  for  the 
best.  '  Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven — Thy  will  be 
done.'  Don't  you  remember  ?" 

"  {  Thy  Kingdom  come  ' — you've  left  that  out,  mother," 
said  Molly. 

"  Because  that's  where  mother's  going — isn't  it,  moth- 
er ?"  said  Polly. 

Mrs.  Broser  smiled  a  last  wan  smile  of  admiration  of 
her  children's  prodigious  intellects.  Then  her  eyes  closed. 
She  had  exhausted  her  last  reserve  of  energy. 

Bobby  howled  with  his  usual  suddenness.  "  Muvver !" 
he  screamed,  "  Muvver!  Take  me  wif  oo!" 

Her  voice  seemed  to  come  from  afar.  "  No,  dear ;  you 
must  stay  with  father." 

"  No !     No !      Don't  want  f aver 1" 

Broser  wiped  his  eyes.  "  You  deserve  their  love,  Su- 
sannah." 

She  put  out  a  blind  hand.  "  Dearest,  don't  let  them 
forget  me." 

His  voice  choked.  "  How  can  they  forget  you  ?  How 
can  I  forget  you  ?" 

There  was  a  long  pause.  Her  strength  ebbed  away 
momently.  Then  her  resignation  broke  down  too,  in  a 
heart-cry : 

"  I  should  have  liked  to  see  you  Prime  Minister,  Bob." 

"  Yes."  His  great  tears  rained  upon  her  face.  The 

224 


MRS.    BROSER    AT    HOME 

pathos  of  the  thought  seemed  intolerable.  That  he  should 
fight  and  fight  and  win,  and  she  not  be  there  to  see !  Suc- 
cess seemed  suddenly  empty.  The  world  was  a  great 
hollow  place,  full  of  the  echoes  of  weeping. 

"  Don't  cry,  Bob,"  she  said  brokenly.  "  You  have  al- 
ways been  so  good  to  me.  God  bless  you,  sweetheart." 

She  lived  through  the  night,  but  this  was  the  last  thing 
she  said. 


CHAPTEK  XXI 
THE    WORLD    AND    THE    FLESH 

BROSER  mourned  for  his  wife.  There  was  scarcely 
a  day  in  which  he  did  not  remember  her  virtues. 
The  children  were  almost  uncontrollable.  The  twins  with 
true  democratic  instinct  treated  their  nurses  and  gov- 
ernesses as  equals ;  they  conversed  like  commonplace  mid- 
dle-aged women;  but  the  commonplace  middle-aged  wom- 
en they  addressed  mistook  this  premature  mediocrity  for 
impertinence,  as  their  poor  mother  had  mistaken  it  for 
brilliance.  Bobby's  perverseness  took  the  form  not  of 
talk,  but  of  action.  He  did  what  he  liked,  and  kicked 
and  clawed  at  opposition.  He  had  developed  his  howls 
into  a  system  of  tyranny.  Altogether  the  father  wonder- 
ed what  impish  ancestral  strain  could  have  crept  into 
the  blood  of  the  sainted  Susannah. 

Then  there  was  the  house-management,  and  even  the 
care  of  his  wardrobe.  Although  the  wealth  she  had  left 
him  permitted  an  extravagant  establishment,  no  hireling 
could  replace  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand.  Nor  could 
he  distract  his  great  career  by  personal  attention  to  do- 
mestic details.  The  very  intensity  with  which  Broser 
lamented  his  late  partner  suggested  her  rapid  replace- 
ment. That  was  no  disloyalty  to  her  memory,  he  told 
himself:  rather,  a  testimonial  to  the  gap  she  had  left 
in  his  life. 

One  Sunday  night  over  the  port  he  was  bewailing  the 
woes  of  the  widower  to  Professor  Otto  Pont.  The  phi- 
losopher and  his  whilom  admirer  had  become  friends 
since  the  night  when  Otto  Pont  had  ministered  to  the 

226 


THE   WORLD   AND   THE    FLESH 

stricken  Susannah.  They  had  soon  changed  roles.  Otto 
was  now  the  admirer,  and  Broser  the  admired.  In  fact, 
Broser  had  constituted  Pont  his  confessor,  to  whom  he 
confessed  all  his  virtues.  The  Professor  was  a  pro  tern. 
substitute  for  the  lost  Mrs.  Broser:  never  tiring  to 
hear  of  his  ambitions  and  to  applaud  his  successes,  and 
superior  to  Allegra — who  also  officiated  at  the  shrine 
— by  being  available  at  all  hours.  Besides,  to  the  Pro- 
fessor he  could  avow  all  his  paternal  goodness  under  the 
trials  inflicted  by  Susannah's  children:  an  aspect  his 
delicate  prevision  of  possibilities  kept  from  Allegra's 
attention.  Broser's  nature,  for  all  its  surface  gnarl,  need- 
ed the  waft  of  the  censers,  as  a  weak  woman  needs  the 
smelling-salts.  He  must  have  a  dresser  to  prepare  him  for 
the  scene,  and  a  gallery  to  play  to.  The  admiration  of 
the  German  Encyclopedia  was  peculiarly  fortifying,  in- 
asmuch as  Broser  in  his  Midstoke  days  had  gaped  at  the 
marvellous  erudition  of  this  pillar  of  the  freethinking 
press.  To  be  felt  by  this  philosophic  prophet  as  the  man 
of  the  future  made  Broser  feel  himself  the  man  of  the 
present. 

Font's  flattery  was  almost  as  pervasive  as  the  delicious 
smoke  into  which  he  converted  Broser's  cigars.  One 
might,  indeed,  have  fancied  these  aromatic  clouds  the 
literal  incense.  But  the  Professor  had  Broser's  interests 
truly  at  heart.  For  had  not  his  own  become  entwined 
with  them  ?  He  knew  more  than  many  a  college  of  Pro- 
fessors united,  and  he  had  written  and  lectured  prodig- 
iously, yet  every  silver  hair  in  the  venerable  beard  he 
caressed  represented  some  sordid  struggle  for  a  shilling. 
For  there  was  a  leakage  in  him :  that  touch  of  f  ecklessness, 
of  stupid  dishonesty,  which,  like  drink,  ruins  the  greatest 
in  the  end. 

He  had  sunk  very  gradually,  always  condemned  to  be- 
gin life  anew  among  groups  that  had  not  yet  found  him 
out.  His  amazing  versatility  enabled  him  to  seek  his 
bread  in  a  dozen  intellectual  directions,  but  as  each  en- 

227 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

viromnent  found  him  out  in  turn,  he  was  passed  to  an- 
other, and  generally  a  lower.  From  writing  for  the 
leading  Reviews  he  had  become  a  pseudonymous  penny- 
a-liner,  at  which  rate  he  was  contributing  articles  on 
Astronomy  to  a  science  monthly,  on  "  The  Ethics  of 
Pain  "  to  a  religious  organ,  and  on  "  Comic  Croquet " 
to  a  humorous  journal.  He  was  still  only  half-way  on 
his  downward  career,  and  Broser,  who  took  him  at  the 
old  Midstoke  valuation,  had  not  yet  found  him  out,  which 
was  not  surprising,  as  the  Professor  had  not  found  him- 
self out  yet.  His  decline  was  as  gentle  as  a  fluttering 
leaf's :  no  noise  of  scandal  marked  its  stages.  Those  who 
found  him  out  were  too  pained  to  tell  him  so  to  his  face — 
so  irradiate  with  intellect.  To  pluck  such  a  beard  were 
sacrilegious.  Each  in  turn  dropped  him  quietly,  and  he 
drifted  farther.  Sometimes  a  favoring  wind  lifted  him 
again:  managements,  editors,  secretaries  changed,  and 
then  he  re-entered  lost  services — to  be  found  out  afresh. 

He  warned  Broser  not  to  remarry  hurriedly.  "  This 
Indian  summer  of  bachelorhood  has  its  charms,"  he  said 
poetically.  "  A  widower  is  a  bachelor  with  experience. 
He  of  all  men  should  choose  sagaciously.  And  while 
an  ordinary  man  can  perhaps  afford  to  make  himself  a 
fool,  not  so  the  leader  of  a  party.  He  has  a  duty  to 
posterity — other  people's  posterity,  I  mean.  Ha!  ha! 
The  joke  is  good.  Nicht  wahr?"  And  he  made  a  note 
of  it  on  his  cuff  for  his  comic  weekly.  It  meant  at  least 
twopence  to  him. 

"  This  is  no  matter  for  joking,"  said  Broser,  who,  un- 
aware of  the  contributions  to  the  Halfpenny  Hornet,  was 
puzzled  by  the  laughing-philosopher  aspect  of  the  great 
thinker.  "  It  is  precisely  as  the  leader  of  a  party  that 
I  feel  the  need  of  a  political  and  social  partner." 

"  I  thought  you  said  a  nursery  governess  and  house- 
keeper ?"  murmured  Pont. 

"  That  too.     A  good  wife  is  a  combination." 

"  Precisely.  But  where  is  such  a  prodigy  to  be  found  ? 

228 


THE   WOULD   AND   THE   FLESH 

A  pair  of  scissors  which  is  also  a  pen:  a  poem  which  is 
likewise  a  pudding.  The  wise  man  takes  his  ideal  wife 
in  sections." 

"  That  may  be  all  very  well  for  you."  He  laughed  uneas- 
ily. He  knew  that  Mrs.  Otto  Pont  was  tied  only  by  u  the 
higher  law  "  to  her  comrade,  for  the  Professor  had  told  him 
so.  Pont  combined  with  his  pecuniary  dishonesty  a  scru- 
pulous intellectual  honesty :  it  was  one  of  the  reasons  why 
he  had  not  yet  found  himself  out.  His  right  cheek  was 
oddly  pouched,  the  left  eye  looked  young.  His  face  did 
not  belie  him. 

On  receipt  of  the  dual  invitation  to  the  memorable  "  At 
Home,"  he  had  written  Broser  privately  to  warn  him  that 
Mrs.  Broser  might  object  to  Mrs.  Pont.  Broser,  who  was 
shocked  himself,  but  who  feared  to  appear  provincial, 
said  nothing  to  his  wife,  and  wrote  back  that  though  he 
was  not  fettered  by  mediaeval  prejudices  of  any  descrip- 
tion, his  wife  had  better  be  left  in  ignorance.  At  heart 
he  resolved  that  the  female  Pont  should  never  be  asked 
again.  Open  flouting  of  the  conventions,  while  uninjuri- 
ous  to  a  German  professor  living  on  the  purlieus  of  the 
people,  and  having  his  sphere  of  action  among  the  peo- 
ple, would  not  do  for  one  destined  to  rise,  and  to  work  for 
the  people  from  above.  No,  Broser's  wife  must  be  like 
Caesar's,  and  even  his  own  friendship  with  Pont  must 
never  become  a  public  relation. 

"  One  may  not  realize  the  ideal,"  he  admitted,  after  a 
moment's  more  serious  reflection  over  Font's  notion  of 
sectional  matrimony,  "  but  one  can  idealize  the  real.  And 
— without  going  far  afield — Marshmont  himself  has  some 
nice  daughters." 

"  You  are  already  too  much  mixed  up  with  Marsh- 
mont." 

Broser's  heart  felt  of  lead.  In  that  moment  he  knew 
decisively  that  he  desired  Allegra;  that  the  hopeful  pros- 
pect of  her  was  the  sustainment  of  his  days  and  the 
dream  of  his  nights. 

229 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?"  he  murmured. 

"  Well — if  I  had  dared,  I  would  have  suggested  to 
you  long  ago  to  give  up  that  secretaryship.  It  drags 
you  down.  It  blunts  your  personality." 

Broser  had  begun  to  think  that  too:  but  then  the  sec- 
retaryship was  the  "  Open  Sesame  "  to  Allegra's  society. 

"  It  would  matter  less  if  Marshmont  were  a  rising  force. 
He  has  played  and  lost.  He  had  his  chance  and  spoilt  it." 

"  You  mean  by  resigning." 

"  Not  entirely :  had  he  been  able  to  keep  up  the  attack, 
that  bold  coup  might  have  succeeded.  But  this  illness 
of  his  wife — he  has  never  recovered  from  it.  You  see 
how  the  Ewigweibliche  zieht  uns  Jiindb,  not  up,  as  Goethe 
says.  Marshmont  was  useful  in  his  day,  but  his  day 
is  over.  You  agree  ?" 

"  Certainly.  The  more  I  probe  his  mind,  the  more  I 
see  that  he  is — at  bottom — a  Tory.  The  day  will  come 
when  his  enemies  will  be  sorry  they  didn't  stick  him  up 
as  a  dam." 

"  Just  so.  Ach,  my  friend,  did  I  not  always  say — 
you  and  you  alone  have  the  true  political  insight?" 

Broser's  schoolboy  flush  under  praise  dyed  his  cheeks. 

"  To  marry  one  of  Marshmont' s  daughters,"  Pont 
went  on,  "  would  be  fatal.  The  old  man  would  expect 
you  to  support  him — I  mean  politically.  But  perhaps 
also  pecuniarily,  nicht  wahr?  It's  no  secret  that  he  has 
made  ducks  and  drakes  of  his  fortune.  Some  day  the 
Bankruptcy  Court — who  knows?  A  ruined  politician 
in  every  sense — mein  Gott,  that  makes  not  a  pleasant 
father-in-law.  At  present  you  can  cut  yourself  apart  from 
him  at  any  moment.  If  I  were  you  I  would  resign  the 
secretaryship  and  take  the  first  opportunity  of  voting  in 
the  opposite  lobby,  just  to  show  that  you  are  yourself." 

"  But  I  think  I  have  shown  that,"  Broser  said,  bridling 
up.  "  My  speech  on  the  Income  Tax, — the  House  had 
to  listen  to  that.  Eh  ?" 

"  Gewiss!  You  show,  but  people  don't  see.  To  the 

230 


THE   WOELD   AND   THE    FLESH 

world  you  are  still  Marshmont's  man,  only  with  a  little 
more  devil.  What  was  it  you  said  in  a  speech  of  yours — 
kiss  the  hem  of  Elijah's  mantle  ?  My  friend,  till  you  get 
a  brand-new  mantle,  you  will  be  second-hand." 

The  Professor  was  only  speaking  Broser's  own  suppress- 
ed thoughts:  the  nebulous  doubts  which,  together  with 
the  recentness  of  Susannah's  death-,  had  prevented  him 
compromising  himself  verbally  with  Allegra.  He  had 
begun  to  see  how  greasy  was  the  pole  he  had  set  himself 
so  confidently  to  climb.  His  first  impression  of  the  House 
of  Commons  had  been  largely  illusive.  He  had  not 
gauged  the  pachydermatous  forces  of  prejudice,  the  brute 
strength  of  supercilious  stupidity.  He  had  underrated 
these  as  much  as  he  had  overrated  Marshmont's  position. 
He  had  not  understood  the  all-importance  of  social  advan- 
tages, secret  strings,  feminine  intrigues,  back  stairs. 
Frontal  attacks  on  these  hidden  batteries  were  futile. 
The  eagle  no  less  than  the  dove  needed  the  wisdom  of  the 
serpent.  In  his  reaction  against  his  provincial  credulity, 
he  exaggerated  his  London  scepticism :  listened  to  so  much 
talk  of  the  back  door  as  to  forget  there  were  still  people 
who  marched  up  the  grand  staircase.  The  gossip  he  heard 
now  seemed  of  itself  to  lift  him  to  a  higher  social  atmos- 
phere: it  was  not  the  gossip  of  the  masses.  All  the  in- 
sinuations of  the  People's  Press  paled  before  the  open 
talk  of  the  Clubs  and  the  lobby,  and  he  was  amused  to  see 
how  between  these  social  layers  of  scandal  the  capital- 
istic newspapers  steered  their  bland  and  blameless  way. 
Altogether  he  felt  immensely  more  equipped  with  knowl- 
edge of  the  maze  than  his  cicerone,  Marshmont,  and  he 
had  moderated  his  reverence  for  his  whilom  Elijah  even 
as  he  had  toned  down  his  phrases  to  the  ear  of  the  House ; 
recoiling  to  jump  farther.  For  he  had  altered  no  jot 
of  his  programme ;  though  he  had  begun  to  see  it  was  not 
to  be  achieved  solely  by  elephantine  trampling.  The 
Republic  might  be  more  than  ten  years  in  coming,  but  come 
it  would.  So  corrupt  an  aristocracy  must  sap  itself. 

231 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Meantime  he  must  not  stamp  himself  with  Marshmont's 
failure.  His  dissent  from  that  gentleman's  amiable  com- 
promises must  be  decisively  indicated. 

"  But  they  are  nice  girls,"  he  said  ruefully. 

"  Nice  girls.  Who  denies  it  ?  Dulsie — she  is  called 
Dulsie,  nicht  ? — Dulsie  is  rather  old,  but  the  two  younger 
ones  are  pretty.  But  prettiness — a  politician  cannot  mar- 
ry for  that.  That  would  be  no  other  than  the  Venusberg, 
what  ?  You  will  have  to  keep  the  whole  family — yes,  and 
that  Pangthorne  couple,  too.  But  you  need  all  your 
money  for  the  cause.  It  would  be  wiser  to  add  to  your 
sinews  of  war.  A  man  of  your  position  can  pick  where 
he  will." 

Broser  shook  his  head  modestly,  so  as  to  be  contradicted 
in  turn.  But  the  Professor  unexpectedly  modified  his 
statement. 

"  Well,  of  course,  the  range  is  limited  at  present.  But 
every  step  you  take  in  your  career  means  a  grade  higher 
marriage  possible."  The  Professor's  Teutonic  mind  some- 
times made  his  English  cumbrous. 

Broser  was  shaken.  It  was  true.  Once  before  he  had 
jumped  imprudently.  Susannah  had  seemed  to  him  as 
seductive  and  superior  as  Allegra  now:  would  the  day 
come  when  Allegra  would  seem  second-rate,  compared 
with  what  might  have  awaited  him?  Not  in  breeding 
and  education,  assuredly.  Still,  in  position  and  prestige. 
A  fallen  Cabinet  Minister  soon  sank  back  to  obscurity: 
he  was  like  a  Lord  Mayor  who  had  failed  to  get  knighted. 
Yes,  the  Professor  was  right.  The  outsider  could  see 
the  game.  And  Allegra  took  on  a  new  aspect — changing 
from  the  inaccessible  she,  to  the  not-good-enough. 

But  the  next  time  he  saw  her  in  the  flesh,  with  her 
dancing  eyes  and  grave,  winsome  mouth,  a  sudden  anger 
flamed  in  his  breast  against  Marshmont  for  having  squan- 
dered his  fortune  on  behalf  of  watery  political  principles 
that  made  his  daughter  inadvisable.  What  added  to  Bro- 
ser's  anger  was  the  recollection  that  Allegra's  political 

232 


THE   WORLD   AND    THE    FLESH 

principles  were  entirely  correct,  modelled  on  his  own.  She 
shared  his  passion  for  the  poor,  for  human  brotherhood, 
for  justice,  ay,  even  for  Republicanism.  It  was  malicious 
of  Providence  to  have  dangled  so  ideal  a  helpmeet  within 
his  reach.  Besides,  had  he  the  right  to  desert  her  ?  Did 
not  her  sweet  face  soften  when  he  came  in,  beyond  what 
mere  comradeship  would  warrant  ?  Why  had  she  thrown 
herself  so  eagerly  into  the  canvassing?  A  woman  never 
espouses  a  cause,  but  a  man,  he  told  himself.  "  These  pret- 
ty sensitive  creatures  have  not  our  large  self -sacrifice  for 
abstractions."  Was  she  to  lose  the  man  she  loved,  the  rise 
to  political  sovereignty  hand  in  hand  with  him  ?  Tears 
started  to  his  eyes.  Poor  Allegra !  Yes — and  poor  Bob, 
too,  for  she  was  an  exquisite  creature.  The  cause  of 
the  People  was  indeed  exacting. 


CHAPTER   XXII 
EVE   IN   THE   GARDEN 

BY  a  curious  coincidence  the  question  of  marrying 
Broser    was    startlingly    obtruded    upon    Allegra's 
maiden  consciousness  just  as  Broser  had  decided  to  look 
elsewhere  for  his  official  partner. 

The  superior  Jim  had  gone  to  Oxford,  having  scorned 
Cambridge,  and  Allegra  had  come  up  for  Commemoration 
in  the  charge  of  Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Pangthorne.  She 
had  snatched  at  this  brief  interlude  in  the  domestic  drama, 
which  was  growing  daily  more  tragic,  and  in  which  Dul- 
sie's  international  flirtations  provided  the  only  vein  of 
comedy,  unless  Mrs.  Marshmont's  renewed  outbreaks 
were  to  be  taken  gayly,  in  the  spirit  of  Joan.  From  Joan 
herself  Allegra  had  drifted  away:  alienated  by  Joan's 
humble  unquestioning  atheism  and  her  frank  wooing  of 
William  Fitzwinter,  M.P.,  though  in  charitable  moments 
she  suspected  that  Joan  had  really  made  her  god  of  the 
brilliant  Fizzy.  Marshmont's  throat  had  grown  worse, 
though  he  taxed  it  less  and  less,  and  his  gout  defied  all 
Joan's  dietary  solicitude,  and  worn  out  by  his  wife's 
trials  and  his  own,  he  had  reached  a  moody  consciousness 
of  the  failure  of  his  life-work  and  the  futility  of  his  sacri- 
fices. His  despair  of  the  future  exaggerated  the  barren- 
ness of  the  past,  saw  even  his  one  great  historic  measure 
corroded  by  gnawing  heresies,  the  old  vermin-plague  of 
fallacies  springing  up  afresh.  He  was  spared  the  knowl- 
edge that  Jim  himself  wrote  satirical  verses  involving 
these  very  economic  fallacies.  But  then  Jim  wrote  sa- 
tirical verses  against  everything  in  a  learned,  classical 
style,  and,  surrounded  as  ever  by  affectionate  cronies, 

234 


EVE   IN   THE   GARDEN 

believed  with  them  that  he  was  Aristophanes  over  again — 
only  with  better  taste.  "  A  genius  need  not  cease  to  be 
a  gentleman  "  was  one  of  his  dicta. 

At  the  College  Garden  Party,  Allegra  was  as  surprised 
to  see  this  superfine  young  gentleman  bringing  Lady  Min- 
nie strawberries  and  cream,  as  she  had  been  to  meet  the 
Duchess  again.  She  had  always  refused  to  revisit  Eos- 
mere,  pleading  home  or  political  duties,  and  the  Duchess 
had  not  followed  up  her  letter  to  Mrs.  Marshmont  by  a 
call,  though  Mrs.  Marshmont  still  lived  in  hopes  of  it. 

"  A  very  ugly  boy,  your  brother,"  was  the  Duchess's 
comment  on  her  new  nephew. 

"  Hush,  he'll  hear  you,"  Allegra  breathed. 

"  I've  told  him  already,"  said  the  Duchess  reassuringly. 
"  I  wonder  who  he  takes  after." 

Allegra  felt  inclined  to  suggest  some  common  ancestor 
for  him  and  Minnie;  but  was  content  to  make  the  sug- 
gestion "  in  her  brain." 

"  I  know  who  he's  like !"  the  Duchess  cried.  "  He's 
like  poor  Stanley's  boy — the  same  turn-up  nose ;  the  same 
coarse — " 

"  Who's  Stanley  ?"  interrupted  Allegra  in  terror. 

"  Oh,  Alligator !  Forgotten  your  own  cousin,  Viscount 
Marjorimont,  who  was  killed  in  ISTovabarba  the  same  time 
as  your  brave  Tom !  Yes — when  Stanley's  little  boy  grows 
up  to  be  Earl  of  Yeoford,  he'll  look  exactly  like  your 
Jimmy — and  I'm  sorry  for  it!" 

"  Well,  let  us  hope  he'll  grow  to  fit  his  name,"  said 
Allegra,  smiling.  And  then  suddenly  strange  tears  came 
into  her  eyes  at  the  beautiful  day,  the  sunlit  grass,  the 
pretty  faces  and  dresses,  the  old  College  walls,  the  old 
College  elms  and  copper  beeches,  the  play  of  dappled  light 
through  the  branches  upon  the  white  table-cloths  and  the 
gleaming  jugs  and  glasses.  So  lovely  a  world,  but  a  worm 
at  the  heart  of  it !  The  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  so  slow 
in  arriving,  for  all  Broser's  prophet-thunders.  That  hoary, 
ivied  chapel  with  its  ancient  windows — how  its  very  age 

235 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAn 

preached  the  powerlessness  of  Christianity!  Her  brim- 
ming eyes  rested  on  Mabel  and  Lord  Arthur,  and  she  won- 
dered with  a  shade  of  envy  at  their  perfect  satisfaction 
with  life  and  each  other,  as  they  ate  their  coffee-ices.  Then 
she  found  herself  listening  to  Minnie's  and  Jim's  emulous 
epigrams,  quizzing  their  fellow-creatures.  This,  too,  seem- 
ed to  satisfy  them ;  nor  did  they  even  appear  to  be  aware 
that  others  might  find  equal  amusement  in  themselves. 

"  What's  become  of  that  Bob  ?"  the  Duchess's  strident 
voice  broke  in  on  her  reflections. 

"  What  bob  ?"  said  Allegra,  startled.  For  a  moment 
she  thought  the  Duchess  had  descended  to  slang,  and  was 
speaking  of  a  lost  shilling. 

"  The  fat  boy  in  Pickwick" 

Allegra  got  very  red.  "  Oh,  you  mean  Mr.  Broser. 
He's  an  M.  P.  now." 

"  That  I  know.  And  I  was  very  angry  to  hear  that  you 
canvassed  for  him.  I  felt  like  writin'  a  long  letter  to 
scold  you." 

"  You  did." 

"  Did  I  ?  I  am  so  glad.  I  hope  you  never  see  him, 
now  he  has  got  what  he  wanted  out  of  your  father." 

"  You  are  unjust.  He  is  still  acting  as  father's  secre- 
tary." 

"  Then  I  hope  you  keep  him  in  his  place." 

"  His  place !"  echoed  Allegra  angrily.  "  His  place 
will  one  day  be  in  the  Cabinet." 

The  Duchess  smiled  confidently.  "  The  outlook  for  our 
dear  country  is  not  so  bad  as  that,  Alligator.  We  still 
require  manners  and  education  in  our  Ministers." 

"  You  mean  because  Mr.  Broser  doesn't  stick  in  Latin 
quotations — because  his  speeches  deal  with  realities." 

"  When  Latin  quotations  leave  public  life,  England's 
greatness  will  be  ended." 

"  But  do  you  understand  Latin  ?" 

The  Duchess  flushed.  "  That  has  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  I  insist  on  Latin  in  public  life." 

236 


EVE   IN   THE   GARDEN 

"  And  I  insist  on  great  hearts  and  big  brains." 

"  Alligator !"  screamed  the  Duchess.  "  If  you  go  and 
marry  that  brute,  I'll  never  forgive  you." 

Allegra  felt  the  earth  rocking,  and  she  wished  it  were 
indeed  from  an  earthquake,  that  she  might  be  swallowed 
up. 

Never  had  she  consciously  seen  herself  as  anything 
but  Broser's  friend  and  humble  co-worker,  and  Broser's 
unconcealed  grief  for  his  lost  wife  had  made  her  vaguely 
figure  him  as  a  perpetual  widower,  faithful  to  a  precious 
memory.  The  Duchess  had  grossly  destroyed  her  simple 
unconsciousness,  set  her  cheeks  burning  with  stranger  fires 
than  shame's.  And  amid  all  her  agonized  confusion 
rose  her  instinctive  defiance  of  the  Duchess.  If  only 
Broser  should  really  ask  her  some  day!  What  a  noble 
mission  were  hers — the  very  mission  she  had  come  to  crave : 
to  surround  a  great  strong  soul  with  a  mother's  love.  Ay, 
and  she  could  be  a  mother  to  Broser's  children,  too :  relieve 
him  of  the  trials  and  burdens  which  she  had  divined  be- 
neath his  stoical  reticence.  How  she  would  atone  vica- 
riously for  her  own  mother's  superaddition  of  trials  and 
burdens  to  those  of  his  Promethean  prototype.  There 
was  a  fascination  in  this  idea  of  satisfying  a  spiritual 
equation. 

"  Well,  why  don't  you  speak  ?"  said  the  Duchess.  "  I 
do  believe  you'll  throw  yourself  away  like  your  father. 
You're  all  bewitched.  As  for  Tom,  he's  a  blind  owl  not 
to  see  what's  goin'  on.  And  you,  Alligator !  Isn't  there 
enough  of  the  Marjorimont  blood  in  you  to  burn  with 
shame  at  the  thought  of — ' 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Aunt  Emma,"  she 
murmured,  to  silence  her ;  "  Mr. — ,  the  gentleman  you 
speak  of,  is  inconsolable  for  his  wife's  death." 

"  He  has  the  devil's  own  luck,"  the  Duchess  replied 
grimly.  "  Parvenu  politicians  may  be  divided  into  two 
classes :  the  lucky  and  the  unlucky.  The  lucky  are  those 
whose  wives  die." 

237 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  I  won't  listen  to  such  dreadful  things,  Aunt  Emma. 
Where  is  your  Christian  charity  ?" 

"  It  is  the  office  of  a  Christian  to  foil  the  devil.  But 
tell  me — that  I  may  sleep  soundly — tell  me  what  are 
your  intentions?" 

"  My  intentions?" 

"  Towards  the  inconsolable  widower." 

"  My  intentions  are — strictly  honorable !"  And,  mis- 
tress of  herself  again,  Allegra  smiled  gayly  in  her  aunt's 
face.  The  Duchess  turned  peevishly  upon  Minnie. 

"  Haven't  you  had  enough  strawberries  yet  ?" 

"  But  I  have  not  had  enough  of  my  new-found  cousin !" 
protested  Jim. 

"  Ah !  I  don't  wonder.  She's  better  to  look  at  than 
the  lookin'-glass,  eh  ?  Minnie,  speak  to  your  misguided 
female  cousin.  Jimmy,  give  me  your  arm  and  point  me 
out  the  Dons." 

"  What's  the  matter,  Ally  ?"  asked  Minnie,  as  the 
Duchess  bore  Jim  away — to  enlist  him  against  her  union 
with  Broser,  Allegra  divined  angrily. 

"  Nothing,"  she  murmured. 

"  Has  mother  been  telling  you  how  superior  she  is  ?" 

"  No :  only  how  inferior  I  am." 

"  Ah,  there's  her  whole  gamut." 

"  You've  always  been  a  puzzle  to  me,  Minnie,"  Allegra 
said  after  a  pause.  "  Do  you — or  do  you  not — share  this 
superstition  of  the  Marjorimont  blood  ?" 

Minnie  assumed  her  enigmatic  smile. 

"  Why  should  I  share  the  superstition  ?  Enough  that 
I  share  the  blood." 

"  Don't  be  such  a  sphinx,  Minnie." 

"  Don't  be  such  a  stupid,  Ally.  If  the  world  reverences 
the  Marjorimont  blood — how  lucky  for  the  Marjorimonts ! 
Look  sphinxlike,  and  say  nothing.  Don't  blab,  like  moth- 
er." 

"  Then  you  don't  believe  it  deserves  reverence,  really  ?" 

"  I  don't  say  that.  But  it's  not  my  business  to  rever- 

238 


EVE   IN   THE   GAKDEN 

ence  it.  I  am  it.  And  I've  got  better  work  for  my  organ 
of  veneration." 

"  I  don't  believe  you've  got  any  organ  of  veneration." 

"  And  yet  you've  seen  me  copying  old  Masters  by  the 
hour!  O,  Ally,  Radicalism  has  addled  your  brain." 

"  I  would  rather  see  you  worshipping  in  the  Temple  of 
Humanity !" 

"  I  don't  think  you've  had  any  strawberries  and  cream, 
yet.  Shall  I  get  you  some  ?" 

"  You're  making  fun  of  me." 

"  Never  was  more  serious  in  my  life — because  I  want 
some  more  myself." 

When  the  Duchess  returned  from  her  round  on  Jim's 
arm,  Allegra  could  not  help  fancying  gratefully  that  Jim 
had  risen  superior  even  to  the  Duchess.  At  any  rate  the 
Duchess  looked  snubbed.  But  perhaps  it  was  only  by  Al- 
legra's  imperturbable  swallowing  of  strawberries. 


CHAPTEE   XXIII 
ELIJAH    TKANSLATED 

IK  the  height  of  the  following  season  London  was  visited 
by  an  epidemic  of  home-grown  cholera,  which,  not  con- 
tent with  devastating  its  native  slums,  spread  in  the  most 
exclusive  quarters,  to  the  disgust  of  the  upper  classes,  who 
had  a  vague  feeling  that  Nature  had  been  converted  to  the 
new  Eadicalism.  But  Mr.  Kobert  Broser  did  not  trust 
his  convert.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  plan  his  exodus 
abroad.  True,  the  Parliamentary  session  claimed  him, 
but  then — "  the  poor  little  children !"  He  could  not  risk 
the  snuffing  out  of  their  brilliant  promise,  nor  place  the 
burden  of  them  upon  other  shoulders.  He  went  one  fore- 
noon to  tell  Marshmont  so,  and  to  resign  his  secretary- 
ship "  in  consequence."  It  seemed  a  providential  oppor- 
tunity. Marshmont  was  practically  extinct.  And  Al- 
legra  was  prettier  than  ever.  She  occupied  his  thoughts 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  possibilities;  tempted  him  to 
forget  them,  and  be  content  with  her.  Yes,  the  double  cut 
must  be  made.  When  he  returned  from  the  Continent  he 
would  be  a  free  man,  with  his  career  before  him. 

He  found  Marshmont  sitting  in  the  sunlit  nursery- 
study,  with  his  head  on  the  table.  The  whole  attitude 
expressed  despair,  and  the  bullfinch  perched  on  his  arm 
seemed  to  droop  in  equal  dejection.  Broser's  salutation 
of  "  Good-morning  "  went  unheeded. 

"  Has  anything  happened,  sir  ?"  he  said,  alarmed. 

Marshmont  raised  a  white  face.  Broser's  face  blanched 
sympathetically.  He  foresaw  he  knew  not  what. 

"  Have  you  not  heard  ?"  said  Marshmont. 

240 


ELIJAH    TRANSLATED 

"  !N"o — what  ?"  Broser  gasped. 

"  God  laughs  at  me."  And  he  let  his  head  fall  between 
his  arms  again.  Was  Marshmont  going  mad?  If  so, 
how  lucky !  Robert  Broser  was  cutting  himself  away ! 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Marshmont/'  he  said,  infusing  deep  con- 
cern into  his  tones,  "  do  tell  me.  Perhaps  I  can  help — " 

"  No ;  I  am  beyond  help.     My  career  is  at  an  end." 

What  new  damage  could  have  been  done  to  the  poor 
man's  prestige,  he  wondered.  Perhaps  Robert  Broser 
ought  to  have  resigned  earlier. 

"  How  can  you  say  that,  sir  ?"  he  replied  reproachfully. 
"  A  great  leader — still  in  the  prime  of  life !"  It  was  an 
assurance  he  had  often  had  to  apply  of  late  to  his  Chief's 
despondencies.  This  time  Marshmont  unexpectedly  ac- 
cepted it. 

"  That's  the  damnable  irony  of  it.  I  am  to  be  kicked 
up  into  the  House  of  Lords."  And  with  a  passionate 
gesture  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  shook  off  the  bullfinch  into 
the  air. 

"  Eh  ?"  Broser's  cheeks  took  the  hue  of  the  bullfinch's 
breast,  under  the  shock  and  the  rush  of  thought.  A  lord 
for  a  father-in-law !  A  stumbling-block  removed  from  his 
Parliamentary  path !  "  The  Premier  has  given  you  a 
peerage !"  he  cried  confusedly. 

"  What  an  idea !  As  if  I  could  take  anything  at  the 
Premier's  hands!  No;  it's  this  ghastly  cholera.  The 
old  Earl  of  Yeoford  and  his  grandson  carried  off  in  one 
day !  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  so  horrible  and  pa- 
thetic !  And  how  little  one  can  foresee  the  freaks  of  suc- 
cession! Two  buffers  between,  and  yet  I  was  not  safe." 

"  It  wasn't  in  the  papers !"  breathed  Broser,  open- 
mouthed.  An  ancient  peerage  and  a  wealthy!  Son-in- 
law  of  the  Earl  of  Yeoford!  Husband  of  the  Lady  Al- 
legra!  Better  and  better.  Unless  perhaps  it  was  too 
late.  That  over-worldly  German  Professor  had  tried  to 
stifle  all  his  heart's  best  instincts.  He  should  have  pro- 
posed long  ago. 

241 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  It  '11  be  in  the  evening  papers,"  replied  the  Earl.  "  I 
had  a  wire  to  spoil  my  breakfast  from  my  sister  the  Duch- 
ess of  Dalesbury.  She  rushed  down  to  nurse  them  both 
yesterday — good  foolhardy  creature !  But  it  was  too  late. 
I  hope  she  goes  scot-free,  herself." 

"  I  hope  so  too,"  said  Broser  fervently.  He  desired  to 
keep  a  Duchess  in  the  family.  "  I  met  her  at  Midstoke, 
if  you  remember,  on  the  ever-memorable  day  of  your  great 
speech  at  the  Bryden  Memorial  Meeting.  A  rare  noble 
soul  I  thought  her  at  the  time — with  such  old-world  cour- 
tesy. Ah !  what  an  epoch  that  was  in  my  life !  What  do 
I  not  owe  to  your  lordship  ?" 

"  Lordship !  Lordship !"  cried  the  Earl  angrily. 
"  Leave  that  to  the  lackeys.  A  pretty  lordship !"  He 
threw  off  the  bullfinch,  which  had  returned  to  its  perch 
on  his  person,  and  began  to  stride  about  the  room.  "  All 
my  life-work  a  failure — and — for  ironic  climax — the 
Earl  of  Yeoford!" 

"  But  you  must  accept,  sir  ?"  said  Broser  sympathetical- 
ly, seeing  he  had  blundered. 

"  My  poor  wife  is  naturally  delighted,  and  I  dare  not  rob 
her  of  any  gleam  of  hope  or  happiness  life  still  holds  for 
her.  You  must  have  seen  how  she  has  suffered  from  my 
career.  Ah,  how  Fate  flouts  all  my  theories!" 

"  It  is  indeed  a  calamity  for  you,  sir,"  said  Broser,  mar- 
velling that  the  dregs  of  Marshmont's  career  should  again 
seem  precious  wine  as  soon  as  the  vessel  had  been  shatter- 
ed, and  that  the  broad  lands  and  revenues  of  the  Earldom 
could  bring  no  balm  to  the  soul  of  the  baffled  politician. 
"  It  is  a  calamity  for  me  no  less,"  Broser  went  on.  And 
his  voice  had  genuine  tremors — but  of  anxiety. 

"  I  know  —  I  know  your  sympathy  for  me."  And 
Marshmont  ceased  in  his  stride  to  grasp  his  henchman's 
hand. 

"  It  is  not  only  that  I  shall  lose  my  leader,  my  mas- 
ter— "  Broser  swallowed  a  lump.  To  have  his  hand  held 
affectionately  by  an  Earl  gave  him  a  real  emotion.  "  You 

^  242 


ELIJAH    TRANSLATED 

have  always  been  a  father  to  me.  I  had  dared  to  hope 
you  would  have  been  so  in  a  fuller  sense.  But  now — it  is 
too  late." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  The  Earl  looked  at  him  with  no 
gleam  of  perception. 

Broser's  cheeks  published  his  discomfort  in  the  fieriest 
of  letters.  His  hand  involuntarily  loosed  the  Earl's. 

"  I  love  your  daughter,"  he  said  in  an  unaccustomed 
whisper. 

"  You  love — "  The  Earl  was  startled  by  this  further 
turn  of  Fortune's  wheel.  He  leaned  his  back  against  the 
high  nursery  guard  and  stared  at  Broser.  "  Which  ?" 

"  Which  but  the  one  with  whom  I  have  unfortunately 
collaborated  in  your  work  in  this  very  room — to  the  de- 
struction of  all  my  future !" 

"  Allegra  ?" 

"  Allegra."  Broser  bowed  his  head.  "  I  ought  never 
to  have  told  you.  I  know  there  is  no  hope  for  me." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?     Have  you  asked  her  ?" 

Broser's  heart  gave  an  exultant  and  astonished  leap. 
But  his  head  remained  bent.  His  oratorical  and  dra- 
matic instinct  mixed  pictures  and  expressions  from  plays 
with  his  own  emotion.  "  No — and  I  shall  never  ask  her 
now.  Yesterday  perhaps — but  now,  with  this  fatal  knowl- 
edge of  her  rank  and  riches !  No,  no.  Please  "  — he 
clutched  the  Earl's  hand  again  and  wrung  it — "  please 
forgive  this  wretched  confession.  I  was  taken  by  sur- 
prise. Promise  me  Allegra  shall  never  know." 

"  Certainly  if  you  wish  it."  (Broser's  blood  ran  cold.) 
"  But  faint  heart  never  won  fair  lady,"  the  Earl  added. 

O  great  soul!  O  incomparable  Elijah!  In  the  glow 
of  reaction  Broser  returned  with  a  bound  to  his  boyish 
worship.  Ah,  that  miserable  Otto  Pont,  fouling  with  cyni- 
cal slaver  our  godlike  humanity ! 

"  Ah !  sir,"  he  cried,  in  a  shaking  voice,  "  you  raise 
heavenly  visions.  But  how  can  I  hope  for  an  angel  ?" 

"That's  the  way  to  talk  to  Allegra."  And  the  old 

243 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

smile  of  humor  played  for  the  first  time  round  the  new 
Earl's  mouth. 

"  I  have  your  permission  to  speak  ?" 

"  And  my  best  wishes  !  It  will  give  me  a  son  in  the 
House  to  carry  on  my  ideas  —  now  I  am  exiled." 

"  You  had  that  all  the  same,  sir  !"  said  Broser  in  a 
choking  voice,  and  for  the  moment  he  believed  himself. 

The  Earl  of  Yeoford  polished  his  spectacles  with  his 
handkerchief,  then  blew  his  nose  so  vigorously  that  his 
delicate  throat  ached.  "  God  bless  you  !"  he  faltered. 
"  You  give  me  fresh  hope.  You  in  the  one  House,  I  in 
the  other  —  we  may  perhaps  do  something  yet  between  us  !" 

"  We  shall  pull  down  your  House,"  said  Broser,  jovial- 
ly. "  I  shall  be  the  enemy  at  the  gate  —  you  the  Samson 
within." 

"  But  I  am  not  blind,"  laughed  the  Earl.  The  bull- 
finch gave  a  sort  of  whistle,  as  if  in  query. 

"  No  —  /  am  supposed  to  be  that  :  love  is  blind,"  Broser 
laughed  back.  And  the  bullfinch  whistled  again. 

"  That  is  Allegra  practising  in  the  drawing-room,"  said 
the  Earl  kindly.  "  You  know  she's  had  a  musical  fit  of 
late." 

On  the  stairs  Broser  met  the  Countess  of  Yeoford,  all 
wreathed  in  smiles,  and  still  beautiful  despite  all  her  sor- 
rows. 

"  Have  you  heard  the  news,  Mr.  Broser  ?"  she  cried 


'  Yes,  your  ladyship,"  he  replied  promptly. 

"  I  shall  be  presented  again,  and  this  time  the  Queen 
will  have  to  kiss  my  cheek  !" 

"  It  is  a  privilege  greatly  to  be  envied,"  he  said  gallant- 
ly. But  the  Countess's  brain  was  too  excited  to  grasp  the 
compliment.  She  applied  it  naively  to  her  new  Court 
perquisites,  and  replied,  with  equally  unconscious  am- 
biguity :  "  Mr.  Marshmont  —  I  mean  the  Earl  —  doesn't 
seem  to  think  so.  He's  all  in  the  dumps.  But  I  never 
saw  the  old  Earl,  or  his  grandson  —  so  why  should  I  pre- 

244 


ELIJAH   TKANSLATED 

tend  to  grieve  ?  I've  never  even  seen  the  Duchess  of 
Dalesbury,  and  I'm  sure  I  don't  want  to.  The  old  Welsh 
witch  said  I  should  die  young  but  rich.  Half  is  true  any- 
how." 

"  It  is  all  true,  Lady  Yeoford.     You  never  will  be  old." 

"  How  sweet  of  you !  If  only  Mr. — I  mean,  if  only 
Yeoford  wouldn't  age  so  unnecessarily.  But  things  will 
be  better,  now  he  is  out  of  that  beastly  House  of  Commons. 
Are  you  looking  for  the  girls  ?  Lady  Joan  has  run  out  to 
see  about  the  mourning-dresses,  and  Lady  Dulsie  has  rush- 
ed over  to  tell  Lady  Arthur  Pangthorne  what  a  fool  she 
was  not  to  wait,  but  you'll  find  Lady  Allegra  thumping 
away  as  usual  in  the  drawing-room.  Quite  heartless,  I 
call  it." 

Allegra  ceased  playing  as  he  came  in,  and  whirled  round 
on  her  music-stool,  but  her  face  set  sweeter  music  flowing 
within  him.  He  seemed  in  a  southern  land  of  sunshine 
and  melody.  The  welcoming  touch  of  her  soft  magnetic 
fingers — the  daintily  fashioned  hand  of  a  lady  of  title — 
seemed  an  earnest  of  a  lifetime  of  ecstasy. 

"  Have  you  seen  father  ?"  she  said,  a  little  anxiously. 
"  He's  shut  himself  up  and  won't  have  even  me." 

"  I  think  I  may  say  I  left  him  better  than  I  found 
him." 

"  I  don't  doubt.  You  always  do  him  good.  It  is  an 
odd  ending  for  him." 

"  Don't  say  ending.     It  is  a  new  beginning." 

She  shook  her  head.  "  You  always  called  him  Elijah, 
and  Dulsie  was  saying  how  appropriate  it  is  for  him  to  be 
taken  up  to  the  House  of  Lords  while  yet  alive.  He  feels 
it  not  as  heaven,  but  as  a  living  death." 

"  But  that  is  morbid.  Many  a  Prime  Minister  rules 
from  the  Upper  House." 

"  I  thought  you  were  about  to  say  from  his  urn.  How- 
ever, I  will  not  pretend  to  be  altogether  sorry.  The  money 
is  very  nice  for  mother,  and,  after  all,  father's  throat  al- 
ready incapacitated  him  from  active  service — not  to  sav 

245 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

father's  opinions."  And  she  flashed  her  frank  look  at 
him,  thrilling  him.  "  He  has  done  his  work,  and  may  well 
repose  on  his  laurels  and  have  a  little  happiness.  Fort- 
unately Elijah's  successor  is  in  the  field.  He  will  alter 
the  mantle  to  suit  the  times.  But  his  prophetic  vision 
will  be  the  same." 

He  took  the  hand  he  had  reluctantly  let  go.  "  Do  you 
really  regard  me  as  the  wearer  of  the  mantle  ?" 

"  You  know  I  have  seen  it  round  you  always." 

He  plunged  audaciously,  but  confidently.  "  Your  fa- 
ther has  seen  even  farther  than  that — into  your  future  and 
mine."  He  sighed.  "  Would  my  prophetic  vision  were 
indeed  the  same !" 

She  flushed  furiously  under  the  startling  significance 
of  his  gaze,  the  tightening  of  his  hand-clasp. 

"  My  father  has  seen —  ?"  Her  girlish  bosom  rose  and 
fell  painfully.  Strange  reminders  of  Fizzy  in  the  Row, 
of  the  Admiral  in  the  orchid  -  house,  emanated  from 
Broser's  eager  eyes,  and  made  an  under-current  of  discom- 
fort beneath  her  astonishment  and  excitement.  The  play 
of  emotion  across  her  beautiful  mobile  face  made  him  for- 
get the  exact  point  of  his  first  attacking  movement. 

"  Yes — your  father  surprised  the  secret  I  have  hidden 
so  long.  He  saw  my  fear  of  the  Lady  Allegra — the  grand 
new  creature."  It  was  an  even  more  effective  line  of  at- 
tack. What  could  she  do  but  laugh  with  embarrassment : 
"  Oh,  you  can't  be  so  absurd !" 

"  I  am  so  absurd  as  to  love  you !"  he  said,  with  a  hoarse 
undertone  of  despair.  But  he  was  far  more  confident 
than  in  his  prior  proposal  to  the  father-in-law,  and  he 
tried  to  take  her  other  hand.  But  she  withdrew  even  the 
one  he  held.  She  had  resolutely  banished  the  Duchess's 
suggestion  from  her  waking  thoughts,  yet  she  had  always 
known  that  if  the  impossible  happened,  she  would  gladly 
say  "  Yes."  But  now  that  it  had  happened,  she  did  not 
feel  at  all  glad.  Perhaps  it  was  the  suddenness  of  the 
crisis  that  gave  her  this  sense  of  grave  intensity,  as  of  the 

246 


ELIJAH   TRANSLATED 

threatened  destruction  of  the  world  in  which  she  had  lived 
hitherto.  Chaotic  thoughts  raced  through  her  brain — 
incongruous  memories  of  other  dramatic  episodes  that  had 
had  this  very  room  for  theatre.  She  saw  her  mother  walk- 
ing across  it  like  a  somnambulist,  while  the  mob  howled 
without.  And  then — was  it  hallucination,  or  did  she  see 
her  dead  brother  Tom  lounging  against  the  mantel-piece, 
as  on  the  night  when  he  had  first  told  his  mother  he  must 
go  a-soldiering  ?  He  seemed  to  wish  to  tell  Allegra  some- 
thing, but  he  looked  limp  and  helpless,  just  as  she  had 
found  him  under  her  mother's  volleys.  She  shivered  and 
Tom  vanished,  and  she  heard  Broser  saying  bitterly :  "  I 
told  your  father  his  vision  of  our  future  was  colored  by 
his  own  flattering  wishes  to  have  me  for  a  son.  I  knew 
there  was  no  hope  for  me.  But  I  assured  him  I  should 
be  a  son  to  him  none  the  less." 

The  adroit  removal  of  parental  complications  replaced 
these  grim  shadows  of  the  past  by  a  sudden  vision  of  an 
open  Paradise — her  own  chosen  Paradise,  not  of  idleness, 
but  of  noble  joint  labor.  Why  was  she  hesitating  at  the 
gate?  Her  eyes  filled  with  religious  tears.  But  he, 
disconcerted  by  her  coyness,  blundered. 

"  That  night,"  he  reminded  her  tenderly — "  that  night 
when  your  dear  little  hand  stole  into  mine,  and  we  vowed 
together  to  make  an  end  of  war — that  was  the  night  when 
I  first  dared  to  dream.  The  end  of  war,  the  beginning  of 
love — was  it  not  symbolical  ?" 

Allegra's  tears  froze.     "  But  you  were  married,  then !" 

He  stammered,  growing  as  uncomfortable  as  she.  But 
the  repartee  of  the  trained  Parliamentarian  did  not  fail. 
"  Yes,  but — but — that  was  the  first  time  I  discovered  I 
was  not  married:  not  married,  as  I  now  understand  mar- 
riage. It  was  not  the  real  marriage — the  union  of  souls 
for  great  purposes." 

Her  subtle  instinctive  jealousy  of  the  dead  past  was 
allayed,  and,  repentant  of  her  rigidity,  she  let  herself  be 
drawn  slowly  into  his  arms,  feeling  a  new  painful  hypnotic 

247 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

pleasure  in  surrendering  to  this  fascinating  masculine 
strength.  Broser's  pulses  hammered  furiously.  To  hold 
in  his  arms  this  exquisite  palpitating  being,  so  white,  so 
warm!  He  drew  her  sweet  young  lips  to  his  in  a  fiery 
kiss.  She  tore  herself  from  his  grasp,  and  stood,  dazed, 
angry,  happy,  unhappy — flushing  and  fluttering  delicious- 
ly  to  a  lover's  eye. 

"  Dearest  Allegra,"  he  said,  with  exultant  tenderness, 
"  your  father  was  truly  a  Prophet." 


END    OF   BOOK   I 


Boofc  HH 


CHAPTEK   I 
TENEBRAE 

BEFORE  an  altar  in  the  Cathedral  of  Orvieto  a  beauti- 
ful, fashionably  dressed  Englishwoman  knelt  in 
silent  prayer.  Beside  her  knelt  a  ragged  contadina, 
with  a  small  baby  and  a  large  basket.  And  the  ancient 
Cathedral  canopied  and  environed  both  women  with  its 
impartial  glories  of  arch  and  gallery  and  marigold  win- 
dow, with  its  warmth  of  mosaics  and  many-hued  marbles, 
with  the  gathered  peace  of  its  centuries. 

The  Italian  peasant  woman  prayed  to  a  very  definite 
Madonna,  with  a  bambino  like  her  own:  a  Madonna  who 
looked  down  graciously  on  you  in  marble  as  you  passed  un- 
der the  portal,  and  shed  her  sweetness  on  you  from  the 
frescoes  as  you  came  within,  and  from  her  shining  home 
in  heaven — especially  in  this  Holy  Week — leaned  down 
lovingly  to  hear  your  sorrows  and  send  you  your  heart's 
desire.  But  the  Englishwoman  prayed  to  she  knew  not 
what,  sent  out  her  bruised  soul  to  the  nameless  silences, 
as  a  wrecked  creature  clinging  to  a  spar  in  the  waste  of 
ocean  cries  aloud  to  the  starless  darkness  for  help,  un- 
knowing if  there  be  any  ship  to  hear.  She  had  come  to 
admire  this  miracle  of  Italian  Gothic  art:  had,  indeed, 
duly  admired  the  marvellous  fa§ade  with  the  quaint  bas- 
reliefs  of  the  human  story,  from  God's  kindly  presence  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  to  the  scrambling  from  coffins  on  the 
Resurrection  Day — remembering  it  all  from  the  beau- 
tiful reproduction  in  the  Duke  of  Dalesbury's  mono- 
graph —  and  had  passed  within,  promising  herself  a 

251 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

rich  feast  of  black  and  white  perspectives  and  carven 
choir-stalls,  and  fretted  arches  and  glowing  windows  and 
mosaics,  and  gently  stimulated  by  the  thought  of  seeing  a 
fresco  by  Gentile  da  Fabriano,  whose  Flemish  naivete 
particularly  pleased  her.  But  suddenly — perhaps  it  was 
from  the  girlish  memories  brought  back  by  that  many- 
colored  f  a§ade — she  knew  that  all  this  cult  of  the  aesthetic 
was  a  barren  mockery,  empty  of  the  faith  which  had  built 
cathedrals,  and  for  which  cathedrals  were  really  built; 
that  all  her  interest  in  life  was  a  make-believe,  that  her 
long  struggle  was  hopeless,  that  she  had  come  to  the  end 
of  her  strength,  that  she  must  throw  up  her  arms  and 
sink. 

And  she  sank — before  the  waxen  candles  and  the  marble 
images — less  in  prayer  than  in  prostration  beneath  the 
crushing  weight  of  existence,  and,  thus  fallen,  prayed,  not 
with  her  lips,  but  with  the  heaving  of  her  racked  bosom 
and  the  hot  bitter  drops  of  her  tears.  Oh  for  the  faith  of 
this  simple  market-woman,  enfolded  still  by  this  medi- 
aeval atmosphere  of  love  and  worship,  treading  surely 
amid  the  relics  of  saints,  under  whose  feet,  as  they  had 
walked  on  earth,  sprang  up  the  blossom  of  miracle,  and 
whose  dead  bones  still  brought  healing  to  the  living.  Ah, 
surely  for  the  complex,  for  the  modern,  there  was  healing, 
too! 

But  a  slight  relief  from  the  pressure  on  her  brain  was 
all  the  answer  to  her  prayer,  and  that  she  knew  was  only 
the  relief  of  tears.  If  she  had  only  had  a  baby,  like  this 
twice-blessed  peasant  woman!  All  her  emotions  had  to 
be  turned  inwards. 

The  tragedy  of  herself  terrified  her:  still  young,  still 
pretty,  a  leader  of  society,  a  Cabinet  Minister's  wife — the 
envied  of  the  mob — and  with  it  all  a  parched  heart  and 
soul,  a  joyless  dragging-on,  ennui  alternating  with  fits  of 
dull  fury  against  the  nature  of  things,  with  a  longing  to 
shriek  out  against  everything.  Impossible  to  endure  it 
all  another  hour ! 

252 


TENEBKAE 

Long  after  the  contadina — the  little  baby  on  her  arm 
and  the  big  basket  on  her  head — had  gone,  long  after  her 
own  passion  of  abandonment  had  ebbed  back,  leaving  an 
arid  despair,  she  remained  kneeling,  as  if  the  effort  to  rise 
and  face  life  again  were  beyond  her  powers.  Here,  with 
the  sense  of  religious  gloom  and  incense,  with  Earth  so 
naively  near  to  Heaven,  she  was  in  a  harbor  of  refuge,  she 
was  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Outside  in  the  garish  sunlight, 
she  would  be  back  again  in  her  own  century,  and  even  the 
grass-grown  old-world  streets  had  failed  of  late  to  obliter- 
ate her  consciousness  of  the  grinding  present. 

At  last  she  arose,  and  forgetting  even  to  look  at  the  Gen- 
tile da  Fabriano,  she  walked  out  into  the  silent  Piazza 
S.  Maria,  under  the  deep  blue,  cloudless  sky,  and  as  in  a 
daze  descended  the  long  slope  of  the  tufa  rock  till  she 
found  herself  outside  the  town,  and  overhung  by  its  sheer 
cliff.  Far  off  some  oxen  with  tinkling  bells  were  drawing 
a  cart;  otherwise  only  the  murmur  of  insect  life  broke 
the  drowsy  stillness.  Her  eye  followed  the  green  flicker 
of  lizards  on  the  barren  rock.  And  as  she  looked  up- 
wards there  came  into  her  head  a  long-forgotten  sentence 
from  the  Duke's  monograph :  "  Orvieto  on  its  rock  is  not 
unlike  Jerusalem."  And  with  it  came  a  stir  of  girlhood's 
fresh  feeling.  Orvieto!  Jerusalem!  How  the  words 
had  rung  like  music  through  her  brain,  prolonged  their 
echoes  in  her  rich  young  blood.  Even  now,  though  Or- 
vieto— actually  confronting  her — had  lost  its  visionary 
charm,  Jerusalem  still  held  a  vibratory  magic,  touched 
long  -  latent,  religious  emotion,  rekindled  the  vivid  im- 
aginings of  childhood.  With  her  old  trick  of  fantasy  and 
allegory,  she  crowned  the  arid  rock  with  the  Temple  of 
David,  and  lifting  her  hands  towards  it,  prayed  aloud 
— no  longer  wordless — in  her  solitude. 

"  O  God,  send  me  a  Deliverer !" 

Surely  from  Jerusalem  her  help  would  come. 

"  O  God,  send  me  a  Deliverer !" 

But  though  her  anguish  was  now  translated  into  words, 

253 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

she  knew  not  what  she  meant,  nor  who  could  deliver  her, 
nor  how. 

"  O  God,  send  me  a  Deliverer !" 

But  Heaven  stared  at  her — an  azure  impassible  blank. 
And  Earth  was  this  bare  rock.  And  herself  was  emptier, 
arider  than  either. 

She  turned  back  up  the  path  that  climbed  gradually 
towards  her  visionary  Temple,  but  had  made  but  a  few 
paces  when,  raising  her  eyes,  she  saw  a  man's  figure 
descending  to  meet  her. 

Her  heart  leaped  violently — the  Deliverer!  Then  she 
smiled  sadly  at  her  childishness. 

As  he  approached,  she  saw  that  he  was  a  gentleman, 
but  whether  a  native  or  a  traveller  she  could  not  tell.  He 
wore  a  tweed  suit  and  a  felt  hat,  such  as  English 
tourists  affected,  but  his  face  seemed  to  wear  the  color  of 
the  South.  He  walked  broodingly,  with  a  slight  stoop, 
each  hand  grasping  one  end  of  a  walking-stick  held  behind 
his  neck,  as  if  to  prop  up  his  weariness.  For  an  instant 
her  morbid  fancy  figured  him  on  a  cross.  And  as  he 
passed  her  there  gloomed  from  his  face  such  tragic  peace 
that  her  memory  instantly  linked  it  with  that  painted 
head  in  "  The  Last  Supper  "  at  Milan,  Da  Vinci's  head 
of  "  the1  Eedeemer." 

Was  this  indeed  her  Deliverer  ?  Had  God  indeed  sent 
her  an  answer?  Again  she  smiled  bitterly  at  her  super- 
stitious make-believe.  Unconsciously  to  herself,  her  smile 
seemed  an  accentuation  of  her  polite  salutation. 

"  Buon'  giorno"  she  said,  as  was  her  way-side  habit. 

"  Giorno"  he  replied,  startled,  dropping  one  end  of  his 
stick,  to  raise  his  hat. 

The  solitary  word  rang  Italian  in  cadence.  Her 
miseries  and  fantastic  make-believes  vanished  before  her 
sudden  interest  in  the  earthly  man.  He  struck  long- 
silent  chords,  reached  back  mysteriously  into  some  far 
past  in  her  soul.  She  would  have  liked  to  turn  back  and 
look  after  him,  but  dignity  forbade.  Would  they  ever 

254 


TENEBRAE 

meet  again,  she  wondered,  as  she  mounted  towards  her 
hotel.  Probably  never.  But  he  had  given  a  distraction 
to  her  thoughts;  to  speculate  on  his  personality,  on  the 
mystery  of  his  face  of  sorrows,  was  a  relief  from  her  own 
intolerable  pain. 


CHAPTER  II 
"A  DELIVERER?" 

SHE  found  her  Welsh  maid,  Barda,  impatiently  await- 
ing dejeuner  in  the  sitting  -  room  she  had  en- 
gaged in  the  queer  old  hotel  popularly  known  as  La 
Posta.  It  was  not  a  luxurious  sitting-room,  but  it  had  a 
native  flavor,  as  of  metaphoric  garlic.  Large  and  oblong, 
it  was  not  unlike  a  Venetian  room  in  its  unstinted  spaces, 
but  the  windows  were  in  the  longer  wall.  A  sliding 
panel  in  the  wooden  wall  opposite  the  windows  led 
to  two  connected  bedrooms.  The  furniture  was  old  and 
heavy  fashioned,  and  included  a  bookcase  with  glass  doors, 
devoted  to  cutlery  and  crockery.  Colored  prints  of  the 
King  and  Garibaldi  hung  near  the  fly-blown  mirror. 
Greasy  back-numbers  of  Roman  newspapers  and  comic 
journals  had  been  lying  on  a  little  chess-table  near  the 
door,  but  these  were  now  piled  on  the  faded  piano,  and 
replaced  by  a  table-cloth  with  a  cover  for  one. 

"  The  silly  waiter  would  lay  the  things  there  for  me, 
my  lady,"  the  maid  explained.  "  I  told  him  we  ate  to- 
gether, so  he  laid  here  for  me,  and  left  the  other  there  as 
well,  the  idiot." 

"  I'm  afraid  your  Italian  isn't  equal  to  your  Welsh," 
her  mistress  laughed.  She  liked  to  eat  with  Barda — that 
escapade  from  social  forms.  She  was  always  glad  to 
make  such  facile  concessions  to  her  democratic  principles. 
She  had  also  begged  Barda  not  to  call  her  "  my  lady," 
but  the  girl  would  not  be  robbed  of  this  superiority  over 
the  maids  of  plebeians.  As  if  to  make  amends,  she  was 
sometimes  more  familiar  than  even  her  ladyship  desired, 

256 


"A   DELIVERER  ?" 

while  she  also  allowed  other  maids  to  recover  their  superi- 
ority by  not  vying  with  them  in  impersonal  expenditure. 
Perhaps  both  the  familiarity  and  the  altruistic  economy 
were  hereditary — Barda's  aunt,  Gwenny,  had  always  run 
service  on  those  lines.  Over  the  black  olives,  Bar- 
da  inquired  wistfully  whether  they  were  going  back  to 
Rome  by  the  evening  train.  Reminded  thus  that  though 
she  had  prayed  in  the  Cathedral,  she  had  not  "  done  "  it, 
the  mistress  replied  that  after  all  it  was  too  tiring  to  rush 
about,  especially  as  they  had  got  up  so  early  to  catch  the 
train.  Perhaps  they  had  better  stay  the  night.  The  bed- 
rooms seemed  decent.  Anyhow  she  could  decide  later. 

Barda  looked  disconcerted,  yet  not  astonished;  she  was 
used  to  her  ladyship's  whims.  "  It's  lucky  I  brought  a 
bag  in  case  of  accidents.  But  I  told  your  ladyship  to  let 
me  take  the  india-rubber  bath." 

Her  ladyship  laughed.  "  I  shall  manage  quite  well 
with  that  speckled  and  spotted  thing  I  see  hanging  in  the 
corridor." 

"  It  will  be  two  lire  at  least." 

"  Poor  folks — there's  not  much  custom  here — let  them 
have  a  windfall." 

"  If  they'd  only  be  satisfied  with  windfalls,"  grumbled 
the  girl.  "  I  shall  have  to  lock  up  the  bag  every  time  I 
stir  out  of  the  bedroom." 

"  You  did  the  same  even  in  Grand  Hotels."  She  got 
an  additional  spice  of  enjoyment  from  Barda's  detesta- 
tion of  outlandish  places,  especially  as  aggravated  un- 
necessarily by  outlandish  hotels.  Barda  liked  those  ele- 
gant English  hotels  which  annex  to  Belgravia  all  that  is 
mediaeval  and  mystic,  plant  the  flag  of  fashion  in  the 
shadow  of  hoary  cathedrals,  dot  the  eternal  mountains 
with  billiard-rooms,  and  supply  French  menus  and  Church 
of  England  services  near  the  shrines  of  sainted  ascetics. 

The  honeyed  waiter  had  borne  away  the  plates  of  their 
first  course  when  the  door  opened.  Both  were  vaguely 
aware  of  the  waiter's  re-entry.  But  when  her  ladyship 

257  _ 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

looked  up  an  instant  later,  lo!  there  was  the  brooding 
stranger,  seated  far  away  at  the  little  table  in  this  private 
sitting-room  of  hers,  and  already  munching  his  bread. 
She  was  pleased,  yet  puzzled. 

"  Well,  I  like  that !"  said  Barda,  outraged  in  all  her 
lady's-maiden  instincts. 

"  So  do  I,"  said  her  mistress,  smiling. 

"  Waiter !"  Barda  began  angrily. 

"  Hush,  hush,  Barda.  The  waiter  doesn't  understand 
your  English,  but  that  gentleman  may.  There's  some 
mistake." 

"  There's  no  mistake,"  the  girl  muttered  crossly. 
"  They  pretended  to  let  us  a  sitting-room,  but  they  hadn't 
any,  and  they  palmed  off  the  common  dining-room  on  us 
because  there  happened  to  be  nobody  in  the  house  when  we 
came." 

"  Perhaps  it's  his  private  sitting-room,  only  he's  politer 
than  you.  Box  and  Cox." 

"  Well,  and  will  he  dine  here  and  sit  on  here  to-night  ? 
And  your  ladyship's  bedroom — "  her  horrified  glance 
indicated  the  sliding  panel.  "  I  think  we  had  better  go 
back  to  Rome." 

"  You  have  no  spirit  of  adventure." 

"  I  don't  like  his  face — he  frightens  me." 

Her  ladyship  gave  the  girl  a  hushing  glance,  yet  shiv- 
ered herself.  The  furtive  glimpses  she  had  taken  at  the 
face  had  combined  with  his  curious  proximity  to  renew 
her  sense  of  weirdness. 

Surely  this  man  was  to  play  some  part  in  her  life. 
Perhaps  a  Deliverer,  indeed. 

She  tortured  herself  to  divine  something  of  his  person- 
ality. But  the  outer  indications  were  contradictory. 
The  neat  dress,  the  short  hair  punctiliously  parted  at  the 
side  and  brushed  up  from  the  forehead,  suggested  a  man 
of  affairs;  the  stoop,  a  scholar;  the  mobile  mouth  was  an 
actor's,  but  the  small  trim  Vandyke  beard  eliminated  this 
possibility  and  suggested  rather  a  painter;  the  fingers 

258 


"A   DELIVEKER?" 

prosaically  handling  a  spoon  were  those  of  a  musician. 
But  there  was  an  absence  of  expansiveness,  a  sense  of 
suppression  that  repudiated  those  romantic  occupations. 
Even  the  lips,  she  noted,  returned,  as  soon  as  she  put  down 
the  spoon,  to  their  stern  compression.  Well  might  the 
face  frighten  the  simple  Welsh  maid — a  face  of  infinite 
mobility  frozen  to  impassivity,  less  a  face  than  a  death- 
mask  with  live  coals  for  eyes. 

She  saw  him  draw  out  a  cigarette-case,  then  as  by  an 
after-thought  replace  it  in  his  pocket.  She  called  the 
waiter. 

"  Tell  the  signore  he  may  smoke." 

"  The  signore  thanks  the  signora,"  came  the  reply,  "  but 
he  will  smoke  in  the  air." 

And  presently  the  signore  rose,  and,  with  an  almost  im- 
perceptible bow  towards  his  fellow-guests,  disappeared. 

"  Well,  I'm  going  down  to  talk  to  that  Ananias  of  a 
landlady."  Barda  was  still  outraged  at  the  invasion  of 
her  ladyship's  privacy,  as  well  as  at  the  man's  being 
served  from  the  same  dish. 

"  It's  only  for  a  day,"  the  signora  argued  deprecatingly. 

"  Then  we  do  stay  to-night  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  we  should  have  had  to  pay  for  the  bedrooms 
just  the  same." 

But  despite  this  consolation,  Barda  looked  so  bored 
that  her  mistress  resolved  to  let  her  accompany  her  to  the 
Cathedral,  at  the  risk  of  the  Methodist's  iconoclastic  com- 
ments. On  their  way  she  told  the  landlady  they  would  be 
remaining,  and  sent  a  telegram  to  her  sister  at  Rome  to 
inform  her  of  her  whereabouts  and  her  plans.  Barda 
behaved  unexpectedly  well,  the  famous  fagade  striking  her 
open-mouthed.  The  Biblical  scenes,  the  copious  angels 
and  saintly  companies,  and  the  remorseless  resurrection 
of  the  damned,  accorded  so  agreeably  with  her  Calvinistic 
conceptions  that  her  mistress  left  her  outside.  This  time 
the  beautiful  Englishwoman  was  her  artistic  self  again: 

259 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

the  despair  of  the  morning  had  irrationally  vanished,  and 
a  mild  disappointment  before  the  Gentile  da  Fabriano 
was  her  deepest  misery.  When  at  last  Barda  rejoined 
her,  they  passed  together  into  the  Cappella  Nuova  in  the 
right  transept.  And  here  the  first  thing  that  she  saw — 
despite  the  painted  masterpieces  that  seized  the  eye — 
was  the  stranger.  He  was  seated  on  a  bench,  gazing  at 
a  fresco,  his  chin  sunk  on  the  ivory  pommel  of  his 
stick.  It  was  not  surprising  to  meet  him  again — there 
were  few  points  of  repair  in  Orvieto — yet  her  heart  leaped : 
here  in  this  small  side-chapel  they  would  be  too  near  to- 
gether for  silence. 

"  Look,  look — oh,  the  poor  soul !"  Even  Barda's  creed- 
hardened  heart  softened  at  the  horror  in  the  face  of  the 
dishevelled  nude  woman  who  was  being  borne  hellward  on 
the  back  of  a  loathly  devil,  with  horrid  wings  outspread. 
Her  mistress  followed  her  direction,  and  was  overpowered 
by  the  sense  that  here  was  another  great  master,  surely  as 
Titanic  as  Michael  Angelo  himself.  Later,  she  found 
that  everybody,  even  the  Duke  of  Dalesbury,  had  discov- 
ered Signorelli  long  ago,  but  she  was  no  less  pleased  to 
have  rediscovered  him  for  herself.  It  was  an  hour  of 
rare  sensations.  And  even  Barda,  to  whom  technique 
made  no  appeal,  did  not  tire;  for,  after  she  had  quite 
exhausted  Hell,  there  was  Heaven  with  its  lute-playing 
and  fiddling  angels,  and  after  that  there  was  the  upstand- 
ing of  the  dead  at  the  last  trump,  some  with  joyous  bodies 
swift-clothed  in  flesh,  doleful  resurgents  still  in  the  nudity 
of  their  bones,  other  skeletons  in  all  stages  of  scrambling 
out  of  their  graves,  and — lowest  stage  of  all — odd  skulls 
and  bones  that  had  not  yet  found  themselves. 

But  the  stranger  gave  no  sign  of  consciousness  of  his 
companions.  In  the  intervals  of  her  aesthetic  glow,  the 
Englishwoman  remembered  him,  peeped  at  him  out  of  the 
corner  of  a  beautiful  blue-gray  eye.  She  would  have 
liked  to  compare  notes  with  him  about  this  forerunner  of 
Michael  Angelo.  A  few  hours  ago  life  had  held  nothing ; 

260^ 


"A   DELIVERER?" 

now  she  wished  intensely  to  know  this  strange  soul.  But 
she  felt  a  subtle  circle  of  isolation  drawn  round  him  and 
she  had  to  go  away  at  last,  leaving  him  still  in  that  strange 
brooding  immobility,  the  chin  sunk  on  his  stick,  the  eyes 
gazing  at  the  "  Descent  Into  Hell,"  the  shadows  falling 
round  him. 

She  was  angry  with  him,  and  though  she  expected  to 
see  him  at  dinner,  she  had  no  hope  that  they  would  speak. 
They,  the  only  two  civilized  creatures  on  this  mediaeval 
rock,  must  waste  the  good  company  hazard  had  thrown  to 
each.  It  seemed  absurd. 

At  dinner  he  sat  silent  and  far  away  at  his  little  round 
table,  the  dish  passing  between  them  —  by  way  of 
the  waiter — but  no  conversation,  not  even  by  way  of  the 
waiter.  After  the  meal  she  had  a  fire  lit  of  pine-branches 
and  logs,  partly  because  the  evening  struck  chill,  partly 
for  the  picturesque  companionship  of  the  flames  and  the 
shadows.  He  gave  no  sign  of  desiring  to  draw  nigh. 
The  waiter  brought  lamps — one  for  the  big  table,  one  for 
the  little.  The  Englishwoman  was  glad — in  a  town  lit 
incongruously  by  electric  light — to  find  her  hostelry  de- 
void even  of  gas. 

The  stranger  began  to  write  on  some  sheets  of  paper. 
Ah !  a  writer,  then !  How  wonderful  his  face  in  the  lit- 
tle circle  of  lamp-light,  in  the  dusk  of  the  spacious  apart- 
ment! She  established  herself  and  Barda  in  the  two 
rickety  but  cozy  arm-chairs  at  the  fireside,  and  threw  on 
kindling-wood  for  the  mere  joy  of  the  glorious  flare. 

But  perhaps  he  was  only  writing  a  letter. 

"  We  ought  not  to  keep  the  fire  from  him,  Barda." 

Barda  tossed  her  plump  head.     "  It  '11  be  on  our  bill." 

Presently  Barda's  eyes  closed,  and  she  fell  asleep  in  the 
comfortable  arm-chair,  and  the  firelight  danced  upon  her 
lids.  And  then  the  silence  became  painful. 

The  Englishwoman  got  up  to  break  it.  She  walked 
deliberately  towards  the  signore,  then  repelled  by  that  in- 
tangible barrier  of  aloofness,  walked  back  to  the  fire ;  turn- 

261 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

ing  back  again  and  pacing  pensively  up  and  down  the 
room  to  explain  her  first  movement. 

"My  walking  does  not  disturb  the  signore?"  she  said 
at  last,  in  Italian. 

"  Not  at  all ;  but  I  am  sadly  afraid  I  disturb  your 
ladyship/'  he  replied,  in  flawless  English. 

She  had  a  double  shock.  "  You  know  me  ?"  she  mur- 
mured. 

He  did  not  reply ;  he  bent  over  his  papers,  as  if  regret- 
ting he  had  said  so  much.  "  Where  have  you  seen  me  ?" 
she  persisted. 

"  At  Midstoke,  when  you  were  a  girl." 

It  was  a  third  shock,  and  a  more  complex.  Ah,  those 
dear  divine  days  of  girlhood!  Her  emotions  came  and 
went  with  the  old  eloquence  on  her  beautiful  candid  face. 
"  You  recognized  me  after  all  those  years  ?" 

He  bowed. 

She  ignored  his  reticence.  "  Then  let  us  talk  for  auld 
lang  syne.  I  love  talks  by  great  wood-fires — don't  you  ?" 

He  hesitated:  a  faint  smile  of  deprecating  sweetness 
passed  over  his  face.  "  They  are  delightful — when  one 
has  not  to  catch  posts."  He  gathered  up  his  papers,  turn- 
ed out  his  lamp  as  if  mechanically,  and  murmuring 
"  Buona  notte,"  left  her  to  her  speculations. 

Baffled,  she  re-established  herself  opposite  the  sleeping 
Barda,  and  let  herself  float  on  half-mystic  clouds  of  con- 
jecture, not  without  rosy  tints. 

Her  thoughts  passed  to  her  mother,  the  Coimtess,  so 
rich  and  aristocratic  in  her  radiant  old  age,  a  centre  of 
patronage  to  swarms  of  Welsh  dependents,  including 
Barda's  father,  the  younger  brother  of  Gwenny.  She 
smiled  tenderly  at  the  poor  poet's  Druidic  and  mystical 
theories  which  had  broken  up  his  flourishing  pawnbroker's 
business  in  Cardiff.  His  daughter's  name  was  really 
Gwendolen,  like  her  aunt's.  But  there  could  not  be  two 
Gwennies.  Old  memories  forbade.  Allegra  had  first 
thought  of  calling  the  girl  by  her  "  bardic  name,"  but 

262 


"A   DELIVERER  ?" 

even  that  was  unfortunately  Gwenllian;  so  she  compro- 
mised by  calling  her  Barda.  She  watched  her  now  as  she 
slept,  thought  with  a  shade  of  envy  of  the  naive  concep- 
tions of  life  housed  within  that  pretty  firelit  forehead. 

Presently  she  touched  Barda  on  the  shoulder.  The  girl 
awoke  with  a  scream. 

"  Oh !"  she  cried,  in  blinking  relief.  "  Is  it  only  your 
ladyship  ?  I  thought  it  was  the  devil  carrying  me  to  hell 
on  his  back.  I  saw  the  flames  leaping,  leaping.  He  had 
such  eyes — coal-black.  Ah,  I  remember — it  was  that  Jew." 

"What  Jew?" 

"  That  foreign-looking  man.     Is  he  gone  ?" 

She  looked  fearfully  around;  the  wind  began  to  howl, 
shaking  the  windows.  Both  women  shuddered.  It  seem- 
ed suddenly  courageous,  even  foolhardy,  to  sleep  in  this 
deserted  old  posting-inn. 

"  You  are  tired,  Barda.  Go  to  bed.  I  shall  not  need 
you." 

She  drew  back  the  panel  with  a  creaking  rattle;  and 
Barda,  relighting  and  carrying  the  smaller  lamp,  passed 
through  her  mistress's  bedroom  into  her  own. 

"  Good-night,  Barda." 

"  Good-night,  your  ladyship.  I  am  sorry  about  the 
india-rubber  bath." 

Lady  Allegra  stood  in  her  own  dusky  bed-room,  lost  in 
reverie.  It  was  no  longer  the  apathy  of  ennui,  but  of 
delicious  sadness,  accentuated  by  the  fitful  firelight  leap- 
ing through  the  open  partition.  The  fountains  had  been 
loosed,  and  all  her  girlhood  rose  up  enchanted  through  the 
haze  of  tears. 

She  moved  lingeringly  into  the  cheerier  sitting-room. 
Ah,  how  splendid — this  fire  so  full  of  pictures!  She 
crouched  on  the  fender,  heaping  log  on  log  from  the  great 
wood-box.  The  flame  roared  in  the  chimney,  and  the 
wind  without.  And  as  she  listened,  lonely,  to  the  dual 
roar,  her  thoughts  passed  from  herself — passed  to  things 
even  more  melancholy,  to  a  panorama  of  the  dead  over 

263 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

whose  bones  one  walked  in  this  marvellous  tomb  called 
Italy.  In  vain  she  strove  to  call  up  its  living  beauty — 
sapphire  seas  and  pergolas  overlooking  them  from  terraced 
hills ;  white  villages  and  way-side  shrines ;  the  lovely  gleam 
of  oranges  through  thatch ;  olive-trees  and  pink  and  white 
almond  blossoms  and  solemn  lines  of  cypresses.  The  dead 
underworld  obsessed  her — that  vast  stratified  ossuary  of 
the  vanished  generations.  She  saw  pagan  skulls,  perfect 
after  thousands  of  years ;  the  catacombs  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians with  their  naive  pictures  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus ; 
the  portraits  of  Etruscan  wives  and  husbands  outside  their 
stone  urns;  the  bones  of  swashbuckling  nobles,  once  mar- 
rowed  with  the  gross  lustful  life  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  cof- 
fined saints  and  virgins  exposed  in  ancient  churches;  the 
tumbled  Roman  forum  more  funereal  than  a  sepulchre, 
mute  memorial  of  stilled  voices.  And  suddenly  it  came 
upon  her — so  clearly,  so  very  clearly — what  the  wind  was 
saying  out  there. 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  dead  generations  calling — call- 
ing— calling  to  Life,  whose  antiphonal  roar  of  flame  rose 
jubilantly  in  the  warm  lighted  room.  All  around  the 
great  barren  rock  and  through  the  narrow  sleeping  streets 
they  wailed  their  pitiful  yearning,  making  their  vain  ap- 
peal to  the  strange  new  world  that  had  trodden  them 
down,  that  had  grown  its  grass  over  them. 

When  would  the  angels  of  Signorelli's  fresco  blow  their 
great  silver  trumps  for  them  ?  When  should  they  scramble 
from  their  graves  back  to  the  sunlight  ? 

And  with  their  voices  joined  the  plaint  of  her  dead 
self,  her  self  that  had  lived  and  loved ;  very  small  and 
piping  in  the  vast  chorus,  but  oh, so  full  of  heart-break ! 

It,  too,  called  aloud  to  Life.  Was  there  no  Resurrec- 
tion, no  Redeemer  ? 


CHAPTER   III 
RESURRECTION 

HER  lamp  went  out  abruptly,  as  if  in  reply.  She 
looked  up  startled,  and  saw  the  silent  stranger 
fumbling  at  it.  She  was  shy  of  her  childish  posture 
on  the  fender,  but  unable  to  amend  it  without  further 
loss  of  dignity.  The  rustle  of  her  dress  drew  his  eyes 
down  towards  her. 

"  A  thousand  pardons,"  he  said,  disconcerted.  "  I 
thought  you  had  gone  to  bed.  And  the  poor  moths — 
He  broke  off,  and  looked  at  the  scarred,  quivering  frag- 
ments on  the  table,  and  the  firelight  flickered  on  his  face  of 
mystery.  What  vague  memory  stirred  within  her,  so 
that  she  needed  no  further  explanation  ? 

"  I  think  it  is  much  nicer  like  this,"  she  said,  "  with 
only  the  firelight." 

"  Well,  good-night  again.  I  was  on  my  way  to  bed 
when  I  noticed  the  lamp.  Forgive  my  intrusion  on  your 
meditation." 

He  turned  to  go.  She  cried  desperately :  "  Why  are 
you  afraid  to  talk  to  me  ?" 

He  paused  and  looked  back  at  her ;  at  the  face  so  witch- 
ing in  the  firelight. 

"  Because  you  are  a  woman,"  he  said  at  last 

Little  spurts  of  flame  flickered  across  her  face  like 
blushes. 

"  Ah,  you  are  a  woman-hater !"  She  raised  herself 
unobtrusively  into  the  arm-chair  behind  her. 

"  I  hate  no  one."     He  moved  towards  the  fire  and  stood 

265 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

with  his  back  to  it,  his  gigantic  shadow  shrugging  spaa 
modic  shoulders. 

"  A  man  who  won't  talk  to  a  woman  must  be  a  woman- 
hater." 

He  looked  down  sadly  at  her.  "  How  do  you  know 
I  am  a  man  ?" 

Her  heart  almost  stood  still  with  a  sense  of  eeriness. 
His  downward  glance  had  decapitated  his  shadow,  and 
a  monstrous  blotch  loomed  over  her.  She  forced  herself 
to  laugh. 

"  If  you  are  not,  your  conversation  will  interest  me  all 
the  more.  Come,  let  us  chat  of  Midstoke.  The  very  name 
of  that  blatant  municipality  gives  me  courage  in  this  un- 
canny nook  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  am  nervous,  fright- 
ened. I'm  glad  there's  an  Englishman  in  the  hotel. 
There !  did  you  hear  that  wail  of  the  wind  ?  Do  you  know 
what  it  seems  to  me — the  cry  of  the  dead  generations  ?" 
His  impassive  face  twitched  a  little.  How  luminous  his 
eyes  were  in  the  half -gloom !  "  Come,"  she  said,  her  fluent 
torrent  of  words  coming  from  depths  below  her  con- 
scious will,  "  make  yourself  cozy  in  the  other  arm-chair. 
I  want  to  get  the  cry  of  the  dead  generations  out  of  my 
ears.  Let  us  talk — we,  the  only  two  living  people  in  this 
world  of  the  dead." 

"  How  do  you  know  I  am  living  ?" 

This  time  she  had  a  clammy  feeling  at  her  heart.  The 
wind  moaned,  shrieked.  He  stood  statuesque,  impassive, 
the  face  full  of  its  tragic  peace. 

"  You  frighten  me,"  she  said. 

He  smiled  faintly.  "  Oh,  I  was  not  speaking  your 
language." 

"  Now  you  mystify  me." 

"  That  is  why.  You  wished  us  to  talk.  But  first  have 
we  a  common  medium  of  intercommunication  ?  Secondly, 
can  a  man  and  a  woman  ever  really  intercommunicate  ?" 

"  But  you  are  not  a  man  ?"  she  retorted,  smartly. 

"  No — not  in  my  language.  Man  is  a  species  I  hope  I 

266 


RESURRECTION 

have  outpassed.  In  his  language,  I  am  a  Superior  Per- 
son, a  Prig.  And  that  is  what  you  will  end  by  calling 
me." 

"  Not  if  you  take  that  arm-chair." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  That  is  how  you  will  end."  But 
he  sank  into  the  chair  opposite  hers,  and  their  two  shadows 
hovered  behind  them  like  the  tall  swarthy  attendants  on 
Oriental  monarchs. 

And,  thus  seen  face  to  face,  it  seemed  to  her  that  he 
was  verily  an  Oriental  monarch,  that  his  short  hair  and 
neat  English  clothes  were  unreal.  Exquisitely  as  his 
coat  followed  the  lines  of  his  figure,  it  did  not  fit.  His 
personality  demanded  the  flowing  robes  of  the  Magi,  ay, 
and  the  flowing  locks.  His  apparent  desire  to  disguise 
himself  in  order  to  pass  through  life  unobtrusively  was 
thwarted  by  his  face. 

"  Prig  is  the  last  thing  I  should  call  you,"  she  assured 
him. 

"  The  last  thing  you  will  call  me,"  he  repeated  obsti- 
nately, with  his  faint  smile.  "  People  hate  the  idea  of 
Superior  Persons.  One's  simple  knowledge  of  how  tall 
one  is  they  confound  with  conceit.  Though  why  people 
should  suppose  Evolution  can  stop  suddenly  short  at  man, 
I  do  not  understand.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  man  long  ago 
disappeared  from  this  planet." 

A  new  idea  leaped  like  a  flirt  of  flame  into  her  terri- 
fied eyes.  What  if  he  were  merely  mad  ? 

"  You  mean —  ?"  she  muttered  uneasily. 

"  I  mean  that  as  soon  as  bows  and  spears  came  in,  the 
animal  that  had  evolved  from  the  ape  gave  way  to  an  ani- 
mal with  detachable  weapons  of  offence  and  defence;  in- 
stead of  the  cumbrous  fixed  horn  or  the  heavy  irremovable 
hoof,  man  protruded  a  separable  club  or  sword.  Arms 
and  the  man  are  one.  On  horseback  he  changed  to  the 
centaur.  To-day  he  has  evolved  into  a  monster  worse 
than  the  chimeras  dire  that  wallowed  in  antediluvian 
marshes — no  fire-breathing  dragon  of  primeval  imagina- 

267 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

tion  could  spit  shells  to  destroy  towers  and  troops  miles 
away.  His  eyes  are  the  microscope  and  the  telescope,  his 
arms  reach  electrically  round  the  globe.  What  each 
generation  inherits  in  detached  shape  is  no  different  in 
essence  from  what  it  inherits  in  fixed  structure.  We  do 
not  rank  the  snail  as  more  of  a  housed  creature  than  man, 
because  its  habitation  is  not  even  semi-detached." 

"  No,"  she  said,  smiling,  and  reassured  as  to  his  sanity. 

"  You  admit  this  evolution  of  the  animal  man.  But 
the  spiritual  man — did  he  stand  still?  No;  there  came 
the  type  that  meditates  on  all — and  finds  its  apotheosis 
in  the  Buddha,  the  type  that  loves  and  pities  all — and 
finds  its  apotheosis  in  the  Christ.  The  Christian  is  liter- 
ally a  '  new  man.'  He  has  reached  the  stage  of  opposing 
Love  to  Force.  Such  a  type  is  of  course  still  very  rare, 
for  the  Christian  spirit,  like  other  forms  of  genius,  is  an 
unfavorable  variation  that  can  scarcely  maintain  itself 
in  the  hostile  environment,  still  less  propagate  itself.  The 
reason  why  we  assume  that  all  '  men  '  are  '  men  '  is  that 
man's  further  external  evolution  being  rendered  unneces- 
sary by  these  detachable  limbs  and  weapons,  and  taking 
place  outside  him  in  balloons  and  bicycles,  the  real  human 
evolution  has  gone  on  in  the  brain,  which  is  not  super- 
ficially visible.  Only  when  we  wear  our  brains  outside 
does  the  higher  type  become  patent." 

"  But  we  can't  wear  our  brains  outside !"  laughed  Al- 
legra. 

"  That  is  just  what  we  can  do.  Self-expression  means 
pressing  ourselves  outside.  All  literature  and  art  are 
our  brains  made  visible;  detachable  like  the  weapon-limbs 
and  transmissible  to  our  posterity.  It  is  thus  the  poets, 
artists,  mystics,  philosophers,  recognize  and  gravitate  to 
one  another :  schools  are  formed,  religions,  sects.  Relig- 
ious wars  are  really  racial  wars.  Externally  there  is 
no  telling ;  the  banker  might  take  Browning  for  a  banker, 
and  no  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet." 

"  I  see,  and  so  you  doubt  whether  I  am  of  your  species." 

268 


RESURRECTION 

"  Even  if  you  are,  the  difference  of  sex  is  in  itself 
almost  an  insuperable  bar  to  profitable  conversation.  Wom- 
en refract  life,  they  never  reflect  it." 

"  Then  this  is  the  first  time  you  have  talked  to  a  wom- 
an!" 

"  Your  choice  of  this  hotel  made  me  suspect  you  were 
not  a  woman." 

"  Ah !"  she  said,  comforted.  "  I  had  suffered  enough 
in  our  English  hotel  in  Rome.  Rome  is  but  an  annexe 
to  it.  We  keep  a  Protestant  parson  on  the  premises,  and, 
to  quote  Mr.  Fitzwinter,  his  sermons  are  longer  than  they 
are  broad." 

"  Ah,  the  English !  The  earth  is  theirs  and  the  fatness 
thereof;  and  they  have  a  mortgage  on  heaven,  and  will 
foreclose  when  they  die." 

"  Come — let  us  abuse  our  countrymen !"  she  cried  joy- 
fully. 

"  Ah,  you  are  like  Whitlock.  I  was  in  Paris  during 
its  last  paroxysm  against  perfidious  Albion.  He  read  the 
French  abuse  religiously.  '  One  knows  it's  mostly  lies,' 
he  said  to  me.  '  But  it's  very  pleasant  to  read.' ' 

"  But  is  it  lies  ?  Are  they  not  warranted  in  suspecting 
we  desire  now  to  annex  the  whole  of  Novabarba  ?" 

He  hesitated.  "  Block  number  one.  You  are  the  wife 
of  a  prominent  Cabinet  Minister." 

"  My  husband  and  I  are  two  persons,"  she  said  reck- 
lessly, and  stooped  to  throw  a  bundle  of  kindling-wood 
on  the  fire.  It  blazed  effulgently  in  a  splendid  spurt  of 
flame.  "  Ah,  if  one  could  have  lived  always  like  that !" 
she  cried. 

"  You  are  not  still  at  your  Midstoke  furnace-heat  ?" 

"  Was  it  at  the  Bryden  Memorial  Meeting  you  saw  me, 
or  when  I  was  canvassing —  ?" 

"  At  the  meeting.  I  heard  Mr.  Broser's  panegyric  on 
your  father." 

Her  face  contracted  in  pain.  "  And  that  makes  you 
wonder  at  his  political  position  to-day." 

269 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Not  at  all.  It  is  another  interesting  study  in  evolu- 
tion." 

"  Evolution !     Evolution  !"  she  repeated,  scornfully. 

"  Well,  the  survival  of  the  fittest,"  he  conceded,  with 
a  smile. 

"  Ah,  yes !"  she  said,  unsmiling.  "  Anything — any- 
thing— that  he  may  survive."  Her  recklessness  was  gain- 
ing on  her ;  she  wished  to  pour  out  her  years  of  misery  to 
this  unknown.  He  sat  there  so  imperturbably — appear- 
ed to  think  it  simple  and  natural  that  she  should  bare  her 
soul  to  him.  And  this  poise  of  his  reacted  on  her ;  she  ex- 
plained his  face  to  herself  now — the  face  of  a  priest,  to 
whom  women  are  drawn;  of  a  modern  priest  who  could 
understand  the  modern  soul. 

"  He  will  survive  to  be  Prime  Minister,"  he  said. 

"  I  hope  to  God  not !     The  country  in  his  hands !" 

"  It  is  practically  in  his  hands  now — despite  his  nom- 
inally minor1  post." 

She  sighed.     "  Yes,  he  always  gets  his  own  way." 

"  But  does  he  ?  Didn't  he  start  to  make  England  a 
Republic  ?" 

"  You  know  I  don't  mean  that,  The  way  he  gets  is  the 
way  to  Power.  When  we  married,  I  thought  it  was  the 
way  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth." 

His  gaze,  she  fancied,  had  a  compassionate  softening. 
"  You  must  have  had  many  shocks,"  he  said,  and  surely 
his  voice  was  gentler. 

"  Ah,  how  I  draped  him  in  illusions — " 

"  In  your  father's  mantle !" 

"  Yes.     He  was  to  carry  on  the  great  tradition." 

"  You  and  he  together." 

"  I  was  to  work  for  him  and  he  for  the  world.  And 
he  has  worked  only  for  himself." 

"  Then  you  and  he  have  both  worked  together — for 
the  same  man.  Ah,  he  will  end  as  the  Earl  of  Mid- 
stoke.  And  that  will  be  following  your  father,  after 
all." 

270 


RESURRECTION 

"  Don't  laugh  at  me.     When  I  look  back  to  that  Mid- 
stoke  meeting,  and  see  how  far  he  has  diverged — I  won- 
der that  I  have  been  able  to  live  with  him  at  all." 
"  Ah,  it  is  the  problem  of  the  Soros." 
"What  is  the  Soros  r 

"  The  Soros  is  the  heap.  The  Greek  sophists  used  to 
ask,  when  was  a  heap  a  heap  ?  They  added  pebble  to 
pebble  till  you  said  it  was  a  heap,  then  they  took  the  last 
pebble  away,  and  asked  you  to  explain  why  it  had  ceased 
to  be  a  heap.  The  change  in  your  husband  was  subtle, 
gradual.  There  was  no  moment  in  which  you  could  cry 
convincingly,  f  Soros!'  Every  time  you  remonstrated 
he  said  that  you  didn't  understand  the  world — that  in 
politics  you  had  to  give  a  little  in  order  to  get  more,  that 
the  line  of  advance  was  up  a  spiral  staircase — 

As  he  spoke,  Allegra's  mind  was  taking  a  bird's-eye  view 
of  her  husband's  political  career,  so  prematurely  successful 
in  the  face  of  so  many  obstacles.  How  apt  that  sophistic 
image !  At  no  moment  had  Broser  deserted  his  principles. 
Never  in  her  frequent  passionate  protests  had  she  been 
able  to  outfence  his  skilled  repartee.  And  yet  here  he 
was  at  his  own  antipodes  on  the  political  globe.  He 
would  have  said  the  globe  had  revolved,  not  he. 
"  You  are  a  seer,"  she  said. 

"  A  simple  student  of  spiral  evolution.  By-the-way, 
have  you  seen  the  Pozzo  di  S.  Patrizio  near  the  amphi- 
theatre here  ?" 

"  Didn't  know  there  was  an  amphitheatre." 
"  Yes — go  and  see  the  view  of  the  Tiber  Valley  and  the 
Umbrian  Mountains,  and  then  go  down  the  wonderful 
well.  There's  a  spiral  staircase  down  and  another  up 
from  it.  Poor  Truth !  She  is  approached  spirally  and 
abandoned  spirally.  Your  husband  is  very  near  the  top 
now.  Even  the  Prince  who  has  never  forgiven  him  his 
plain-spoken  attacks  on  Royalty  will  shake  hands  with  him 
on  the  day  when,  head  of  a  Tory  government,  he  moves  that 
the  grant  to  the  Crown  be  doubled.  If  only  he  doesn't 

.271 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

tell  you  that  to  double  his  Sovereign's  income  was  his 
boyish  day-dream!" 

"  How  well  you  know  him !" 

"  His  character  has  always  fascinated  me." 

"Why?" 

He  did  not  answer.     She  repeated  her  question. 

"  Oh,  because — because  he  is  everything  I  am  not." 

"  Then  I  am  glad  I  spoke  to  you,"  she  cried  impul- 
sively. 

"  You  are  premature.  But  I  am  glad  I  spoke  to  you. 
Your  own  Soros  is  so  much  more  interesting  than  your 
husband's." 

"  You  mean,"  she  said,  a  whit  taken  aback,  "  my  grad- 
ual concessions  to  him." 

"  I  mean — what  have  you  done  to  realize  the  King- 
dom of  God  on  earth  ?" 

One  of  her  girlish  blushes  suffused  her  cheek.  The 
voice  and  face  of  a  priest,  indeed ! 

"  I  tried — I  did  try,"  she  said  humbly. 

"  But  you  got  entangled  in  society  functions,  in  keep- 
ing house  for  a  rising  politician.  Then  also  the  romantic 
revival  in  art  and  letters  interested  you,  and  the  profess- 
ors thereof.  You  allowed  them  to  build  you  the  House 
Beautiful.  Also  you  went  to  Bayreuth." 

"  Well,  think  of  those  early  Victorian  sideboards ! 
And  oh,  the  clock  in  my  father's  drawing-room." 

"  Ah,  yes — we  have  all  travelled  very  far  from  the 
antimacassar  period.  Let  it  be  counted  unto  you  for 
righteousness  that  you  have  not  become  a  leader  in  the 
smart  set."  He  shuddered.  "  And  I  have  seen  your  name 
on  Charity  Committees.  But  I  will  wager  you  never 
attended  them  like  your  sister." 

"  You  know  about  Joan,  too  ?" 

"  One  cannot  escape  knowing  the  champion  lady  philan- 
thropist, interested  in  all  humanity,  plain  and  colored, 
in  all  animals,  wild  or  tame;  herself  keeping  the  largest 
stud  of  hobby-horses  in  England." 

272 


EESU ERECTION 

"  Poor  dear  Joan !  Don't  be  satirical.  I  am  living 
with  her  in  Rome  now,  and  see  her  life.  Day  and  night 
she  works  for  humanity.  Its  woes  keep  her  from  sleep- 
ing." 

"  She  should  use  mosquito-nets — like  you." 

"  Ah,  I  lie  awake,  too,  sometimes." 

"Still?" 

"  Still.     If  only  I  could  Avork,  too,  like  Joan !" 

"  You  cannot.  You  have  a  generalizing  intellect. 
You  wish  to  set  things  straight  by  a  great  universal  meth- 
od. You  cannot  stoop  to  set  right  small  individual  lives 
and  isolated  grievances.  Between  the  impossible  uni- 
versals  and  the  intolerable  particulars  you  fall  to  the 
ground." 

"  You  are  a  magician.  Ah,  I  had  almost  forgotten. 
You  may  smoke." 

"  Do  magicians  smoke  ?" 

"  No,  but  you  will  oblige  me  by  smoking.  Joan  would 
have  thought  of  it  long  ago." 

He  lit  a  cigarette  at  the  fire  and  puffed  at  it. 

"  The  new  man  does  smoke  ?"  she  said,  smiling. 

"  Yes — to  build  a  spiral  staircase  by  which  his  dreams 
mount." 

"  What  do  you  see  in  the  smoke  ?" 

"  I  see,"  he  said  slowly,  "  a  pair  of  yoked  carriage- 
horses  fallen  down  in  the  Corso,  and  kicking  themselves 
to  death  in  their  efforts  to  rise." 

"  And  the  interpretation  thereof,  O  magician  ?" 

"  The  interpretation  is  as  obvious  as  the  oracle.  Cut 
the  traces  before  the  horses  fall." 

She  opened  her  eyes  wide.  "  Oh,  I  thought  you  Avere 
dreaming  about  your  oAvn  life." 

"  My  OAvn  life !  That  has  done  with  dreams — and  with 
yokes,  too!" 

"  So  has  mine !"  she  confessed  desperately. 

"  With  dreams  or  yokes  ?" 

"  Both,"  she  murmured,  blushing  furiously. 

273 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 


« 


A  truly  modern  evolution,"  he  commented  with  pro- 
voking priestly  calm.  "  Marriage  as  a  public  partnership, 
and  a  private  divorcement." 

"  Well,  I  had  to  consider  the  children." 

"  Ah,  you  have  children — that  makes  a  difference." 

"  Not  children  of  my  own.  There  were  Polly  and 
Molly  and  Bobby.  Oh,  what  have  I  not  suffered !"  Old 
memories  flashed  upon  her  of  scenes  with  all  three:  of 
the  gradual  process  by  which  she  had  converted  them  from 
rebels  into  adorers. 

"  But  they  are  grown  up  now  ?" 

"  Polly  and  Molly  got  married  in  their  first  season — 
one  to  a  poor  Marquis  who  supports  Mr.  Broser  in  the 
Lords,  and  one  to  a  baroneted  brewer  who  supports  Mr. 
Broser  in  the  Commons." 

"  Ah,  he  strengthens  himself  by  alliances — the  peerage 
and  the  beerage.  And  Bobby?" 

"  Bobby  is  at  Oxford." 

"  A  mistake !     He  will  grow  ashamed  of  his  father." 

"  You  forgot  his  father  is  a  doctor  of  every  univer- 
sity in  Great  Britain !" 

He  smiled.  "  And  you  have  no  children  of  your  own. 
How  lucky!  That  solves  your  problem.  Leave  him. 
Even  by  your  title  you  were  always  symbolically  semi- 
detached. Accept  the  omen." 

"  You  seriously  advise —  ?" 

"  Ah,  you  think  all  these  things  serious — title,  position, 
politics,  scandal — " 

She  interrupted,  flushing:  "  No,  I  do  not." 

He  continued  languidly,  as  he  watched  the  smoke 
spirals.  "  Society — to  rule — to  shine — all  dearer  to  you 
than  you  think — the  breath  of  your  nostrils." 

"  You  wrong  me !" 

"  And  then  to  be  the  Prime  Minister's  wife !" 

She  felt  teased,  tormented.  She  broke  down  with  a 
sob :  "  Oh,  if  you  only  knew  how  I  have  prayed  for  de- 
liverance from  it  all!" 

274 


RESURRECTION 

"  Forgive  me,"  he  said  gently.  "  I  see  you  are  of  my 
species." 

Then  rising  he  put  out  his  hand.  "  Good-night,"  he 
said. 

"  Good-night,"  she  murmured,  too  disconcerted  by  his 
abruptness  to  give  him  the  smile  and  the  cordial  hand- 
clasp she  felt.  And  when  he  was  gone,  she  abandoned 
herself  to  her  fit  of  sobbing. 

But  when  it  was  over,  and  she  was  undressing  in  her 
bedroom,  it  occurred  to  her  suddenly  that  something  im- 
probable, something  entirely  unworldly  and  unreal,  had 
happened.  She,  the  cold  Englishwoman,  had  stripped 
her  inmost  soul  before  this  stranger,  whose  name — good 
heavens !  whose  very  name — she  did  not  know.  And  yet 
her  soul  refused  to  blush.  On  the  contrary  some  of  its 
virginal  buoyancy  was  miraculously  returning:  she  felt 
the  sap  rising,  some  reserve  battery  of  energy  revealing  it- 
self, sending  thrills  of  life  upwards  to  her  brain,  nerving 
her  anew  for  the  battle  of  idealism.  Merely  to  sleep  in 
this  strange  room  revived  the  old  girlish  sense  of  advent- 
ure. And  by  some  queer  resuscitation  of  buried  impres- 
sions, she  recalled  that  night  of  insomnia  at  Midstoke  in 
the  first  hotel  bed  of  her  girlhood,  after  her  first  glimpse 
of  the  red-faced  young  man  whose  name  she  did  not  know. 


CHAPTER  IV 
CAUSERIE 

IN  the  morning,  he  appeared  imperturbable,  at  his  little 
breakfast  table,  and  except  that  the  "  Good-morn- 
ing "  they  exchanged  was  cordial,  all  that  had  passed  be- 
tween them  might  have  taken  place  in  dream-land.  She 
had  confessed  everything  to  him — everything  except  that 
this  was  her  private  room.  And  he — he  had  told  her 
nothing. 

She  wanted  to  ask  him  to  come  over  to  her  table,  but 
the  presence  of  Barda — that  specimen  of  a  lower  human 
species — would  make  real  conversation  awkward.  His 
morning  coffee  sipped,  he  left  the  room  with  a  courteous 
salutation,  a  revert  to  silence.  Perhaps  he  had  already 
repented  of  his  assignment  of  her  to  his  own  species.  She 
was  a  little  piqued,  and  yet  relieved  to  find  she  had  made 
no  mistake — that  he  was  not  to  presume  on  her  reckless 
confidence.  And  then  there  was  Barda  waiting  to  know 
by  what  train  they  were  going  back  to  Joan.  And  she 
had  a  faint  memory  that  her  husband  had  written  about 
joining  her  at  Rome  during  the  Easter  recess.  But  the 
outside  world  beat  faintly  on  the  mediaeval  portals  of  Or- 
vieto,  and  stronger  than  anything  else  was  her  desire  to 
solve  the  riddle  of  this  sphinx  of  whom  she  had  made  a 
Father  Confessor. 

"  I  want  to  see  those  Signorellis  again,"  she  murmured. 

"  Those  pictures,  my  lady  ?"  Barda  shuddered.  "  I 
should  think  once  was  enough  to  give  anybody  the  creeps." 

"  You  seemed  to  enjoy  them." 

276 


CAUSERIE 


.. 


So  I  do  Welsh  rabbits.     But  they  give  me  the  night- 
mare." 

Allegra  laughed.  The  girl  was  growing  as  decisive 
as  her  aunt  Gwenny,  though  she  had  not  inherited  her 
ascetic  tastes.  In  Rome  there  was  fun.  The  band 
played.  The  Scala  di  Spagna  was  gay  with  flower- 
women.  You  could  watch  the  carriages  on  the  Pincio, 
and  perhaps  the  King  himself  would  bow  to  you.  But  in 
these  sunless  old  streets!  Allegra  knew  well  that  every 
hour  in  Orvieto  beyond  the  original  day's  excursion  was 
a  grievance  to  Gwenny's  niece. 

But  how  delicious  that  talk  beside  the  roaring  fire,  with 
the  dead  wailing  outside!  A  golden  hour  snatched  out 
of  life's  dross.  Surely  one  other  at  least  fate  held  for 
her.  To-morrow  there  was  time  enough  to  return  to  the 
Fitzwinters.  All  roads  lead  to  Rome :  only  a  rare  by-path 
led  to  romance. 

"  There's  a  wonderful  well  to  see,"  she  said,  with  a  hap- 
py recollection.  Barda  consented  to  see  the  well,  and 
they  inquired  their  way  to  it.  The  maid  was  disgusted 
to  find  her  mistress  had  to  pay  for  their  admission  to 
the  spiral  staircase. 

"  The  whole  country  is  a  show,"  she  said.  "  Even  the 
beggars  show  their  sores  as  if  they  expect  you  to  pay  for 
the  peep." 

Her  mistress's  chagrin  was  not  so  overt.  But  she  had 
cherished  a  hope — of  which  she  was  unconscious  till  it  was 
disappointed — that  the  sphinx  would  be  at  the  well.  He 
had  instructed  her  so  definitely  to  go  to  see  the  view. 
"  In  a  French  novel  that  would  have  meant  a  rendezvous," 
she  thought,  with  a  self-mocking  smile.  Still,  she  would 
see  him  at  lunch. 

But  she  did  not.  His  place  was  empty,  and  only  the 
fact  that  his  cover  was  laid  suggested  that  he  had  not  left 
the  hotel.  She  could  not  bring  herself  to  ask  the  waiter. 
Vaguely  promising  Barda  that  they  should  take  an  evening 
train  to  Rome,  she  started  out  alone  down  the  Corso  in  the 

277 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

opposite  direction  from  the  well,  to  walk  to  the  Etruscan 
Necropolis,  a  sight  Barda  had  no  stomach  for. 

But  near  one  of  the  mediaeval  towers  she  came  upon  her 
Father  Confessor,  his  stick  clasped  behind  his  neck.  She 
smiled  upon  him. 

"  You  are  late  for  lunch,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  already  lunched,"  he  rejoined,  "  with  an  ag- 
nostic priest." 

"  Is  there  such  a  thing  ?"  she  asked,  as  they  walked 
along  together. 

"  Oh,yes:  a  delightful  person:  the  father  of  his  flock." 

"  And  does  he  teach  them  Signorelli  ?" 

"  You  mean  paint  Damnation  ?  Of  course !  Why  should 
he  spoil  their  zest  of  life  ?" 

"  I  should  have  thought  the  contrary — that  he  made 
them  morbid." 

"  Oh, no:  as  I  was  looking  at  Signorelli's  '  Descent  into 
Hell '  yesterday,  I  was  thinking  how  vividly  our  ancestors 
enjoyed  life,  how  important  each  individual  soul  was,  to 
have  the  ranged  battalions  of  Heaven  and  Hell  fighting 
for  it.  What  an  intense  sense  of  the  significance  of  life, 
when  the  Church  Fathers  taught  that  between  Right  and 
the  smallest  Wrong  lay  an  infinity!  Asceticism  gains 
all  its  saintliness  from  the  supposed  intensity  of  pleasure. 
What  rich  vitality  to  give  material  for  Dantesque  tortures ! 
To  the  modern  soul  the  material  Crucifixion  is  no  longer 
the  divinest  tragedy.  Do  you  know  Nietzsche's  wonder- 
ful saying:  'God  hath  His  own  hell:  His  love  for  men.' 
And  again,  '  God  is  dead.  He  hath  died  of  His  pity  for 
men.' ' 

"  I  have  not  read  Nietzsche,  but  after  those  two  sen- 
tences I  shall/' 

"  Do :  you  will  find  in  him  the  doctrine  of  the  Beyond- 
Man.  But  don't  imagine  I'm  a  disciple." 

"  So,  to  get  a  hold  on  life,  I  must  brood  upon  death." 

"  No :  it  must  come  naturally.  Do  you  care  where  you 
are  buried,  or  what  your  tombstone  will  say  ?" 

278 


CAUSERIE 

"  ISTo." 

"  Then  you  are  hopelessly  decadent.  Think  of  the  tomb 
Napoleon  built  himself  in  the  Invalides.  He  who  thinks 
death  worth  dying  alone  thinks  life  worth  living." 

They  had  left  the  little  town  unconsciously  and  were 
now  on  a  country  road.  Despite  her  companion's  diag- 
nosis of  her,  Allegra  strode  along  with  buoyant  stride 
under  the  blue  heaven.  Her  fearlessness,  her  grace,  her 
wild  beauty — she  had  inherited  her  mother's  witchery, 
magically  proof  against  the  years  and  the  griefs — smote 
him  to  the  unuttered  thought :  "  She  should  be  waving 
the  thyrsus  and  crying  '  Evoe  Bacche  !' ' 

"  You  stride  like  Botticelli's  Judith,"  he  said,  "  and 
I  follow  like  the  handmaid  with  my  caput  mortuum  of 
Philosophy." 

"  But  I  haven't  slain  your  Philosophy." 

"  It  might  be  a  holy  deed.  Let  us  forget  death. 
Even  Signorelli  did.  Let  me  figure  you  as  the  wine- 
bearing  donzella  in  his  i  Temptation  of  the  Fasting  Monk ' 
at  Monte  Oliveto.  Wonderful  frescoes,  are  they  not? 
There  are  bits  you  can  hardly  believe  are  four  centuries 
old — bits  in  the  latest  daintiest  Parisian  manner." 

"  I  am  ashamed  to  say  I  haven't  seen  them.  Signo- 
relli is  only  an  acquaintance  of  a  day.  I  only  ran  over 
to  Orvieto — a  thing  I  have  been  waiting  to  do  for  years — 
because  of  the  monograph  on  the  town  given  me  by  the 
Duke  of  Dalesbury  when  I  was  a  girl.  There  were  no 
reproductions  of  Signorelli,  if  I  remember — it  was  main- 
ly architectural." 

"  The  Duke's  monograph !"     He  sneered. 

"Isn't  it  good?" 

"  For  a  Duke." 

"  I  was  disappointed  in  the  Gentile  da  Fabriano,  which 
he  gushes  over.  Poor  old  Duke!  I  should  like  to  see 
him  again." 

"  What  hinders  you  ?" 

"  The  Duchess.  She  cut  me  dead  when  I  married." 

279 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Her  face  clouded.  "  The  last  time  I  ever  saw  her  was 
at  my  brother's  wedding,  and  then  she  wouldn't  even  in- 
sult me.  But  I  wish  I  had  taken  her  advice.  I  shall 
really  have  to  make  it  up  with  her." 

"  By  taking  it  now  ?" 

"  Don't  be  absurd.     We  cannot  undo  the  past." 

"  We  can  undo  the  future." 

She  shook  her  head  sadly.  Then  her  eyes  lit  up.  "  A 
sudden  thought  strikes  me." 

"  Please  let  it  ricochet  to  me." 

"  Minnie  and  my  brother !  They  must  be  your  and 
Nietzsche's  Beyond-Persons !" 

"  Who's  Minnie  ?" 

"  The  Duchess's  daughter ;  she  married  iny  brother 
Jim,  you  know — Lord  Marjorimont.  It  always  struck 
me  as  amusing — this  union  of  a  Superior  Couple." 

"  You  see  you  still  laugh  at  us."  He  smiled,  himself. 
"  They  might  found,  like  Noah,  a  new  race !" 

"  Unfortunately  they  haven't  even  an  heir.  I  hear  the 
Duchess  worries  dreadfully  over  it." 

"  What  a  variety  of  shoes  Providence  has  invented  to 
put  a  pea  in.  A  sudden  thought  strikes  me,  too !  I  saw 
the  Duke's  name — in  all  the  majestic  isolation  of  '  Dales- 
bury  ' — in  the  Visitors'  Book  at  the  monastery  of  Monte 
Oliveto — where  the  Signorellis  are." 

"  Kecently  ?" 

"  Last  week.  I  often  go  there  and  chat  with  the 
padre." 

"  How  happy  the  Duke  must  be !  He  must  have  per- 
suaded my  aunt  to  cross  the  Channel  at  last." 

"  Or  to  let  him  cross  it  alone." 

"  No ;  she  would  never  desert  Mr.  Micawber.  And  now 
I  shall  be  going  to  Monte  Oliveto." 

"  To  see  the  Signorellis  ?" 

"  No — to  see  your  name  in  the  Visitors'  Book." 

He  smiled.     "  My  name  is  Raphael  Dominick." 

"  Raphael  Dominick !"  she  repeated,  with  a  strange 

280 


CAUSERIE 

throbbing  of  her  veins.  The  name  was  a  moon  to  frozen 
depths  of  herself,  and  they  stirred.  But  all  her  struggles 
to  associate  something  definite  with  the  name  failed. 

They  walked  on,  and  he  began  to  talk  of  Rome  and  its 
strata  of  civilizations — ancient  Pagan,  mediaeval  Chris- 
tian, and  neo-Pagan,  or  Fashionable  Modern — all  on  view 
together  as  in  a  great  natural  socio-geological  museum. 
Allegra  listened,  gaining  more  in  five  minutes  from  him 
than  from  all  the  lecturing  cicerones  under  whom  she  had 
explored  the  Forum  or  the  Coliseum.  His  mind  had 
the  instinct  of  relations,  brushed  aside  men's  own  labels. 
The  chaos  of  phenomena  ranged  itself.  You  saw  currents 
of  influence  rising,  meandering,  drying  up,  losing  them- 
selves in  oceans,  or  joining  in  confluences.  The  pedestri- 
an's blocked  view  was  exchanged  for  the  aeronaut's,  over- 
traversing  a  lucid  chart  of  cities  and  mountains.  His 
scholarship  embraced  the  arts,  the  religions,  the  sciences, 
but  nothing  was  dead  lumber  in  his  mind.  All  things 
were  vitally  interrelated,  expressions  of  man's  changing 
spirit;  even  forms  and  modes  outworn  were  not  withered 
leaves  pressed  between  the  pages  of  a  history,  but  glowing 
with  sap  and  greenness. 

And  in  the  middle  of  an  excursion  into  the  Saracenic 
Empire,  she  remembered. 


CHAPTEE  V 
RAPHAEL   DOMINICK 

T)  APHAEL  DOMINICK !  Kaphael  Dominick !  Her 
J-t>  old  competitor  in  the  Cornucopia.  The  victorious 
poet  of  "  Fame !"  He  whose  verses  she  had  hung  up  as 
wall-texts,  the  singer  of  Truth  and  Beauty,  whose  name 
she  had  imagined  registered  eternally  on  "  The  Scroll !" 
No  wonder  she  had  felt  him  a  friend  of  immemorial  stand- 
ing. The  freemasonry  of  the  Cornucopians  had  drawn 
them  together  unconsciously. 

She  was  no  longer  listening  to  his  analytical  lore.  He 
grew  aware  of  it. 

"  Ah,  I  bore  you !"  he  said. 

"  No,  no,"  she  replied  hastily.  Then,  with  a  humorous 
mouth :  "  Forgive  me  if  I  have  seemed  to  throw  your  con- 
versation into  the  W.  P.  B." 

He  flushed  under  her  arch  look. 

"  Arcades  ambo"  she  cried,  laughing  heartily. 

He  seemed  puzzled. 

"  Do  I  pronounce  it  wrong  ?  I  don't  know  Latin.  But 
I  do  know  Raphael  Dominick.  His  '  Fame  '  has  reached 
me — in  heroic  couplets." 

He  laughed  with  embarrassment,  but  she  was  glad  to 
hear  how  his  laugh  sounded.  It  was  low  and  pleasant. 

"  Now  you  are  the  magician,"  he  replied.  "  How  do 
you  know  of  my  early  sins  ?" 

"  I,  too,  am  a  Cornucopian.  Ah,  how  jealous  I  was  of 
you  when  you  won  that  Five  Pounds !" 

"  Why—did  you  compete  ?" 

282 


RAPHAEL   DOMINICK 

"  Yes — that  is — no." 

"  A  truly  Hegelian  answer." 

"  Oh,  well — it  was  very  stupid."  She  stammered  and 
became  crimsoner  than  he.  "  I  couldn't  finish  my  poem 
because  the  moths  would  fly  at  the  light.  So  I  had  to  put 
it  out — just  like  you  last  night."  His  crimson  leaped 
up  to  her  standard.  "  That  was  why  I  felt  you  so  sim- 
patico,  I  suppose.  Tell  me,  what  do  you  think  of  Fame 
now  ?" 

"  The  prize-poem,  or  Fame  itself  ?" 

"  Both." 

"  I  think  that — neither  is  worth  five  pounds." 

"  Oh !"  she  said  glumly.  "  And  you  wrote  about  it 
so  beautifully !"  She  quoted  a  couplet. 

"  It  is  like  a  voice  from  another  world,"  he  said.  "  But 
the  world  in  which  young  poets  yearn  for  Fame  is  not  the 
world  in  which  they  achieve  it.  Theirs  is  a  dream-world 
of  strenuous  fellow-souls,  aspiring,  winging,  tremulous 
with  love  and  pity,  enamoured  of  musical  words,  a  world 
whose  ears  are  pricked  up  to  catch  the  faintest  accents  of 
new  melody.  Overhead  hover  the  Old  Poets,  as  in  Mrs. 
Browning's  '  Vision ' !  But  they  grow  up  to  find  out 
that  it  is  a  world  of  trading  publishers  and  jealous  critics 
and  sharp  lawyers  and  leaseholders,  a  world  of  puffs  and 
paragraphs.  And  if  they  are  wise,  they  find  out,  too,  that 
it  is  all  one  whether  Raphael  Dominick  or  Jack  Robinson 
is  buzzed  on  the  lying  lips  of  men.  Not  till  '  the  last  in- 
firmity of  noble  minds '  is  gone,  can  their  Evolution  be 
complete." 

His  bitterness  saddened  her  afresh.  "  I,  too,  seem  to 
have  lived  in  a  great  darkened  room  of  many  windows, 
from  which  blind  after  blind  was  lifted  till  I  saw  the 
whole  bleak  landscape  around  me.  But  still  at  the  time 
you  won  your  poetic  bays,  you  must  have  been  happy, 
and  I  shall  always  be  glad  to  think  you  did  get  the  five 
pounds." 

"  But  I  didn't." 

283 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"You  didn't!  And  I  imagined  them  saving  Chatter- 
ton  in  his  garret!" 

"  What  made  you  fancy  I  was  poor  ?" 

"  I  beg  your  pardon — but  I — 

"  But  you  were  right.  In  my  garret  the  moths  had  no 
chance  at  all,  and  they  have  now  consumed  my  poem  in 
revenge.  We  had  no  candle,  and  it  was  written  under  a 
gas  -  jet  on  the  common  staircase  of  a  great  tenement- 
house.  When  the  gas  was  turned  out,  I  arose  from  the 
stairs,  where  many  a  foot  had  trampled  on  my  poetic  in- 
spiration, and  went  to  bed — on  two  chairs  and  a  pillow." 

"  Did  you  live  alone  then  ?" 

"  I  have  always  lived  alone." 

"  But  I  mean,  literally." 

"  My  biography  is  irrelevant." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon." 

"  What,  again !  I  had  better  extend  you  a  general  am- 
nesty in  advance — a  papal  indulgence.  You  are  at  liberty 
to  say  what  you  like,  and  I  am  to  be  at  liberty  to  be  silent 
when  I  like." 

"  It  is  a  fair  contract.  Then,  I  ask,  why  didn't  you  get 
the  five  pounds  ?" 

"  First,  because  I  needed  them.  Secondly,  because  the 
Editor  of  the  Cornucopia  was  a  scoundrel." 

"  What !"  Allegra  gasped.  "  All  those  high  editorial 
principles,  all  those  noble  '  Answers  to  Correspondents !' ' 

"  Another  window-blind  up  ?" 

"  Yes — the  nursery-window,  alas !  He  stuck  to  the 
five  pounds  ?" 

"  No — only  to  three.  He  sent  for  me  to  his  sanctum — 
that  long-mysterious  sanctum." 

'  Yes — "  Allegra  breathed,  her  eyes  sparkling  betwixt 
Bmiles  and  tears. 

"  It  was  also  a  garret — worse  than  mine.  There  was  a 
rickety  wooden  desk,  and  the  floor  was  littered  with  heaps 
of  old  numbers,  technically  known  as  '  returns.'  Over  the 
door  was  a  great  rusty  bell  without  a  clapper — I  don't 

2.8.4 


RAPHAEL  DOMINICK 

know  why  I  remember  that,  because  I  only  saw  it  as  I  was 
leaving — 

"  And  the  Editor — what  was  he  like  ?  How  I  used  to 
wonder !" 

"  Not  a  bit  English-looking — that  was  the  first  shock. 
In  fact  he  wasn't  an  Englishman  at  all,  despite  his  weekly 
gush  about  the  glories  of  the  Empire,  and  the  wooden  walls 
of  old  England.  He  had  a  big  beard,  with  a  curious 
pouch  under  his  right  eye,  which  gave  his  face  a  strange 
look  of  intensity." 

Allegra  wrinkled  her  forehead.  "  Where  have  I  seen 
such  a  face  ?  What  was  his  name  ?" 

"  Otto  Pont." 

"  The  Professor !"     She  came  to  a  standstill. 

"  You  know  him !"     He  paused,  too. 

"  Ah,  I  might  have  left  my  nursery  illusions  in  peace. 
Pont  used  to  come  to  our  house  in  the  early  days." 

"  Till  your  husband  found  him  out  ?" 

"  Till  my  husband  found  out  that  the  Ponts  weren't 
married.  I  had  already  discovered  the  Brosers  weren't. 
But  Mr.  Broser  was  virtuously  indignant.  It  just  occurs 
to  me,"  she  added  reflectively,  "  that  as  he  never  would 
let  me  ask  Mrs.  Pont,  he  must  have  known  all  the  time." 

"  Probably  the  Professor  exploited  your  husband  some- 
how and  he  didn't  like  to  tell  you.  Poor  old  Otto !  Every- 
body treated  him  very  considerately,  but  he  at  last  stum- 
bled on  a  Philistine  who  not  only  had  the  indelicacy  to 
tell  him  he  was  a  scoundrel,  but  who  clapped  him  into 
gaol." 

"  Yes,  I  remember  something  of  it  now.  I  wanted  to 
help  Mrs.  Pont,  but — don't  tell  me  she  was  a  fraud,  too." 

"  No ;  she  was  a  fine  spirit.  And  why  didn't  you  help 
her?" 

"  She  was  away  in  America  lecturing  on  Land  National- 
ization. And  so — so  I  put  off  writing,  until — 

"  Soros.  But  she's  made  a  brave  struggle.  I  think  she's 
a  Theosophist  now,  though.  She  never  stands  still." 

285 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  But  why  are  we  standing  still  ?" 

"  Shall  we  sit  amid  the  olive-trees  ?  You  must  be  tired." 

"  Has  Nature  ever  made  anything  more  beautiful  than 
an  olive  branch?"  she  said,  as  she  sat  down  on  a  grassy 
mound. 

"  It  is  partly  artificial." 

"  Another  illusion  gone !  Great  heavens,  is  nothing 
real ?" 

"  Real  ?  '  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean  but  Nat- 
ure makes  that  mean.'  You  yourself  do  not  disdain  a 
pretty  bonnet." 

"  Joan  chose  this  one.  But  you  haven't  yet  told  me 
why  you  only  got  two  pounds  ?" 

"  Oh,  the  Professor  told  me,  stroking  his  big  beard  " 
he  stroked  his  own  little  beard  mimetically — "  that  the 
best  poem  on  '  Fame '  had  really  been  written  by  a  cousin 
of  his,  also  named  Pont.  But  he  was  afraid  to  award  the 
prize  to  Pont,  for  fear  of  being  thought  unfair.  I  was 
therefore  to  have  the  public  glory,  but  only  the  coin  of  the 
second  prize.  Overwhelmed  by  such  scrupulousness,  I 
signed  the  nominal  receipt  for  five  pounds  from  the  pro- 
prietor." 

"  When  did  you  find  him  out  ?" 

He  flicked  the  grass  with  his  stick.  "  When  I  sent  him 
to  report  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  boat-race." 

''  You  sent  him  ?" 

"  Yes — the  roles  soon  changed.  You  see,  our  Editor, 
finding  me  such  a  dab  with  the  pen,  gave  me  journalistic 
work  to  do ;  which  for  a  year  appeared  in  a  leading  week- 
ly paper.  Long  after,  I  found  out  that  the  Professor  had 
been  using  me  as  a  *  ghost,'  and  getting  five  times  what  he 
gave  me." 

"The  brute!" 

"  It  was  for  this  paper  I  went  to  Midstoke — in  the 
Professor's  place." 

"  Ah,  I  wondered  what  you  were  doing  in  that  galley." 

"  Doing  a  descriptive  report.     Of  course  I  was  delight- 

286 


RAPHAEL   DOMINICK 

ed  with  Mr.  Broser's  speech,  being  then  a  Socialist  and 
disciple  of  Pont.  That  reminds  me  of  a  Concert  in  aid 
of  the  Cause  (the  Cause  was  Pont)  at  which  I  recited 
'  Fame  '  —  by  request."  He  smiled.  "  The  curtain 
couldn't  go  up  till  I  had  lent  the  Professor  a  guinea 
towards  the  rent  of  the  hall." 

"  But  about  the  boat-race  ?" 

"  Oh,  that  was  years  later.  I  had  just  been  appointed 
sub-editor  of  an  evening  paper.  Pont  came  begging  me  to 
let  him  do  the  boat-race.  Then  he  asked  for  a  sovereign 
for  the  press-boat.  Unless  you  were  on  that,  you  could 
not  really  describe  the  race.  When  his  '  copy '  came  in, 
it  was  obviously  faked.  Journalism,  you  know,  is  the 
art  of  disguising  your  ignorance  in  order  to  add  to  other 
people's,  but  Pont's  was  too  palpable.  He  had  probably 
taken  a  lady  to  dinner  with  the  sovereign.  That  was  not 
my  only  failure  in  sub-editing.  I  would  not  put  lies  on 
the  bills,  so  I  resigned." 

"  And  then  ?"    Her  voice  was  tender. 

"  Oh,  another  organ  tried  me  as  dramatic  critic.  When 
I  look  back,  I  wonder  at  the  number  of  people  that  have 
believed  in  me." 

"  I  don't  wonder,"  she  murmured  almost  inaudibly. 

"  Ultimately  I  came  to  forge  quite  far-reaching  thunder- 
bolts in  that  mysterious  anonymous  under-world ;  chief  of 
a  gang  of  gnomes  of  the  night." 

The  hammer-beat  Leit-motif  of  the  Nibelungen  throbbed 
in  her  brain,  as  she  replied,  more  prosaicly :  "  Then  you 
did  get  to  the  top  of  the  tree." 

"  It  was  scarcely  a  Californian  giant.  But  in  its  effects 
on  my  versifying  it  was  a  upas  tree.  Ah !  what  an  ap- 
prenticeship to  Life  for  a  dreamer!  To  see  the  elusive 
palpitating  fiery  flux  of  things  run  into  partisan  moulds 
by  professional  puddlers,  to  tend  the  seething  caldrons 
in  which  opinion  is  manufactured." 

"  You  must  have  seen  more  than  me  at  Midstoke," 
she  said,  smiling. 

287 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

He  ended  broodingly,  not  replying.  "  To  accord  fame 
to  others,  and  learn  its  vanity!" 

"  It  is  always  depressing  to  be  behind  the  scenes,"  she 
said,  thinking  of  all  her  husband  had  told  her  of  the  polit- 
ical coulisses,  in  his  hours  of  gossip  or  self-defence. 

"  Yes — but  not  only  that :  journalism  is  even  more 
subtly  nocuous.  Disillusioning  enough  to  see  log-rolling, 
wire-pulling,  ignorance,  incompetence,  dishonesty — but 
these  are  behind  all  the  scenes.  This  post-haste  transfor- 
mation of  life  into  '  copy ' — this  word-weaving  mill  so 
scientifically  organized  since  the  ingenuous  days  of  Buck- 
ley's Courant — makes  the  great  panorama  pass  before  the 
journalist  as  mere  material  for  pompous  articles  or  flip- 
pant paragraphs.  Life  and  death,  love  and  war,  the  high 
tragedies,  the  historic  dreams — they  lose  at  once  their 
body  and  their  soul,  their  substance  and  their  vital  re- 
lation to  human  hopes  and  emotions,  flit  in  a  ghostly  world 
of  hollow  phrases.  And  then  the  brilliant  young  men 
who  sell  their  own  souls  in  producing  these  bubble-phrases, 
colored  to  suit  the  organ — !  My  own  newspaper  was 
bought  up  a  couple  of  years  ago  by  Sir  Donald  Bagnell  and 
devoted  to  this  wretched  conspiracy  for  the  total  British 
annexation  of  Novabarba  in  the  interest  of  his  Company." 

Some  of  the  old  righteous  indignation  leaped  into  her 
face. 

"  And  you  resigned  ?" 

"  Very  soon ;  but  most  of  my  staff  remained,  pleading 
that  they  became  mercenaries  of  Bagnell  on  the  same 
principle  as  the  penniless  mediaeval  free-lances  took  ser- 
vice with  this  or  that  marauding  prince.  Of  course  my 
standing  out  made  me  seem  trebly  desirable.  Bagnell 
invited  me  down  to  his  Highland  Castle  to  talk  it  over, 
and  hoping  to  talk  him  over  into  leaving  me  a  free  hand, 
I  went.  Bagnell,  however,  said  nothing  for  a  week,  and 
his  pretty  wife  and  daughters  purred  round  me.  Then 
one  day  Bagnell  took  me  out  for  a  walk,  and  we  climbed  up 
a  mountain  to  see  the  view  of  the  lochs  and  six  counties. 


"  ' AFTER  MY  DEATH 


RAPHAEL   DOMINICK 

Bagnell  suggested  my  standing  for  Parliament  at  his  ex- 
pense— he  needed  mercenaries  there,  too — told  me  every- 
body predicted  a  brilliant  political  career  for  me.  He 
foreshadowed  my  marrying  a  daughter  of  his  and  carry- 
ing on  the  Novabarbese  business — 

"  The  mantle  of  Elijah !"  interrupted  Allegra.  "  You, 
too!  How  strange!  I  am  so  glad  you  refused." 

"  Not  without  a  moment's  temptation.  The  girl  was 
very  sweet  and  innocent,  and  Bagnell  in  his  home  life 
was  quite  a  paragon  of  domestic  virtue,  a  charming  host 
and  father,  though  he  could  meditate  plunging  two  coun- 
tries into  war  for  his  own  ends — men  have  these  little 
contradictions.  No,  there  was,  I  admit,  a  moment  in 
which,  feeling  in  my  brain  tissues  the  force  of  the  Beyond- 
Man,  I  was  tempted  to  prey,  like  Nietzsche's  '  free-roving 
splendid  beast  of  prey,'  upon  the  lower  creatures,  called 
men,  to  use  them  for  my  purposes  as  they  use  horses, 
which  bear  their  burdens  in  peace  and  are  shot  for  their 
quarrels  in  war.  Backed  by  riches  and  power,  what  might 
I  not  achieve  ?  In  that  moment  the  empery  of  the  earth 
seemed  at  my  feet,  to  be  had  for  the  stooping.  But  all 
I  picked  up  on  that  mountain  was  the  skull  of  a  poor 
frozen  lamb,  which  still  adorns  my  mantel-piece  in  the 
Mile  End  Road." 

"You  live  there  still?" 

"  Yes — I  went  back  there — after  my  death." 

"  After  your  death  ?" 

He  sprang  up.     "  We  ought  to  be  going  back." 

She  rose.     "  But  what  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  I  appeal  to  our  contract." 

"  You  mean  the  Beyond-Man  had  committed  suicide 
on  the  mountain  ?" 

"  No,  but  not  bad  for  a  beginner.  However,"  he  went 
on  quickly,  "  Bagnell  has  got  on  without  me ;  he  has  ac- 
quired several  other  press-organs  since  (detachable  poison- 
ed weapons  very  useful  in  his  struggle  for  existence),  and 
you  see  the  result  in  this  swelling  of  John  Bull's  veins  and 

289 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

arteries.  He  itches  for  a  second  Novabarbese  war,  to 
repair  his  magnanimity  in  not  having  annexed  the  whole 
country  after  the  first.  Ah,  the  mob!  It  is  a  barrel- 
organ  into  which  any  air  may  be  inserted.  What  tunes 
have  I  not  heard  it  grinding  out — in  Italy,  in  Germany, 
in  France;  unconscious  of  the  politician  turning  the 
handle.  Bagnell  has  made  Britain  resound  with  martial 
melodies." 

"  But  he  will  not  get  his  war.  That,  at  least,  my  hus- 
band will  never  permit." 

"  You  think  not  ?" 

"  If  he  does,  he  will  not  be  my  husband.  The  first 
Novabarbese  war  brought  us  together — the  second  would 
separate  us  forever." 

"  Then  I  shall  pray  for  war." 

"  Ah,  no !  no !  Don't  say  such  horrible  things.  If 
you  only  knew  how  I  suffer  from  every  one  of  '  England's 
little  wars,'  which  we  are  flippantly  told  exist  to  teach  us 
geography !" 

"  You  suffer  from  hypersesthesia.  Your  hell  is  also 
a  love  of  men.  You  will  have  to  follow  me  and  die,  too." 

Some  obscure  glimpse  of  his  meaning  came  to  her. 
Her  old  idealizing  faculty,  incurable  by  all  life's  lessons, 
was  busy  draping  him  in  the  radiance  of  honor,  self-sacri- 
fice, martyrdom  for  great  principles.  Before  her  rose 
Orvieto  and  her  visionary  Tower  of  David,  and  the 
drowsy  town  and  brooding  sky  affected  her  like  some  mys- 
tic fresco. 

"  I  could  follow  you,"  she  said  simply,  "  like  the  women 
who  followed  Christ." 

He  turned  a  sad  startled  glance  upon  her.  "  But  I 
shall  not  rise  from  the  dead,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  VI 
MORS    ET   VITA 

rf^HEY  reached  the  Corso  almost  in  silence. 
JL        "I  shall  be  going  back  to  Rome  to-morrow,"  she 
said,  "  and  to  England  after  Easter." 

"  Ah,  the  London  season !"  he  said  dryly. 

She  winced.  "  My  day  is  Wednesday,  but  I  suppose  it's 
no  use  asking  you  to  come  when  you  return  to  the  Mile 
End  Road." 

"  Not  unless  you  have  a  day  of  the  dead,  as  in  Paris." 

"  How  about  dinner  ?" 

"  I  shouldn't  care  to  meet  your  husband." 

"  Well,  I  shall  have  to  read  you,  then." 

"  I  publish  nothing." 

"Oh,  why?" 

"  What  shall  I  publish  ?  Love-tales  for  the  libraries  ? 
My  early  thoughts  I  no  longer  believe :  my  later  thoughts 
nobody  would  believe." 

"  I  should  believe  them." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Nobody  could  read  them  but 
myself.  All  writings  are  in  cipher:  though  the  key  to 
the  average  writing  is  supplied  by  the  average  experi- 
ence. Consider!  What  should  a  Hottentot  make  of 
Hegel?" 

"  Well,  let  me  have  a  try  at  the  MS.  ?" 

"  Useless.  No  woman  has  ever  understood  life.  Ah, 
you  are  angry  already.  Woman  is  an  inveterate  idealizer, 
a  roseate  refractor — I  dare  say  you  have  already  a  fancy 
picture  of  me." 

291 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

He  was  truly  provoking.  "  I  have  a  truer  picture  than 
you  fancy." 

"  Is  it  anything  like  this  ?"  He  held  up  the  ivory  pom- 
mel of  his  stick,  showing  it  a  motley  of  carved  heads, 
cherubic,  Mephistophelian,  grinning,  weeping,  poetic, 
bestial.  "  That  is  the  only  true  picture  of  me." 

She  smiled  obstinatelv.  "  You  are  making  faces  at 
me." 

"  It  is  at  myself." 

"  Japanese,  I  suppose  ?" 

"  Yes."  That  launched  him  upon  Japanese  art  and 
brought  them  up  to  the  hotel. 

Barda  waited  anxiously  at  the  doorway  with  a  tele- 
gram. 

It  was  from  Joan.  "  Broser  telegraphs  arriving  Rome 
this  evening." 

"  We  start  to-morrow  morning,  Barda,"  she  said  calm- 
ly. And  poor  Barda,  vaguely  hypnotized  into  a  belief 
that  the  telegram  ordained  thus,  uttered  no  protest. 

Raphael  Dominick,  too,  was  docile  that  evening,  join- 
ing Allegra  at  the  fireside  as  from  old  habit,  and  con- 
versing in  Italian  till  Barda  had  gone  to  bed.  And,  as  if 
the  exotic  language  made  it  easier  for  him  to  unveil 
himself — removing  everything,  as  it  somehow  did,  into  an 
impersonal  artistic  atmosphere — he  allowed  Allegra  to 
penetrate  his  simple  secret. 

The  new  additions  to  his  biography  astonished  her,  so 
romantic  were  they.  He  was  illegitimate  to  begin  with, 
and  doubly  illegitimate,  for  his  mother  was  a  Jewess  and 
his  father  a  Christian.  This  father  Allegra  now  remem- 
bered to  have  heard  of  in  her  girlhood — a  dilettante  Eng- 
lishman, who  wrote  fantastic  novels,  penetrated  the 
Mosque  of  Omar  in  Jerusalem  disguised  as  a  Moham- 
medan, and  was  drowned  during  a  mistral  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean. She  now  learned  that  he  bore  with  him  a  beau- 
tiful Jewish  girl,  who  was  saved  from  the  shipwreck 
and  picked  up  by  a  French  cattle-boat,  on  board  of  which 

293- 


MORS   ET   VITA 

Raphael  was  born  prematurely.  From  Marseilles  mother 
and  child  had  been  passed  on  by  charitable  Jewish  com- 
mittees to  London.  Here  they  had  undergone  terrible 
poverty  and  isolation,  till  the  boy  grew  up,  and  then— 
when  years  of  comparative  happiness  lay  before  the  poor 
woman — she  died  lingeringly  of  cancer.  With  her  death, 
soon  after  the  Bagnell  episode,  the  frenzied  Raphael  had 
felt  his  relations  with  life  ended.  "  Already  the  habit 
of  journalism — co-operating  with  my  temperament — had 
made  life  shadowy.  I  seemed  to  live  outside  everything. 
Nothing  seemed  real.  I  moved  in  a  shadow-world,  men 
passed  to  and  fro  before  me  like  images  on  a  screen,  and 
I  was  a  shadow  too.  My  mother's  claim  upon  me  was 
my  one  relation  to  reality.  Even  her  I  regarded  with  a 
pitying  aloofness  wondering  at  the  happiness  it  was  so 
easy  to  bring  her — ere  this  grim  disease  clawed  at  her. 
With  her,  the  last  vestige  of  meaning  died  out  of  existence 
— I  saw  men  rushing  to  and  fro,  pursuing  vain  ends,  per- 
juring themselves  for  phantasms,  passing  tragedy  with  a 
stupid  laugh  and  fighting  tragically  for  farcical  differ- 
ences. Some  pined  in  slums,  others  in  prisons;  their 
equals  in  virtue  or  gilt — if  either  was  real — lolled  in  pur- 
ple and  fine  linen  in  emblazoned  chariots.  The  greatest 
seemed  like  actors  grimacing  on  stages,  to  hear  a  roar  of 
applause  inaudible  a  hundred  yards  off.  Why  should  I 
continue  to  be  part  of  this  foolish  pother,  the  recording 
whereof  was  the  climax  of  the  folly  ?  The  universe  had 
no  further  claims  upon  me — I  was  a  pariah,  who  had 
morally  no  right  to  be  in  the  world  at  all.  Whether 
suicide  was  wrong  for  others  or  not,  I  belonged  to  myself. 
I  was  without  parents  or  relatives,  or  creed,  or  country, 
or  rights,  or  duties." 

"  What  a  unique  position !"  said  Allegra. 

"  Was  it  not  ?  It  was  the  consideration  of  that  which 
kept  me  from  crude  physical  suicide.  I  felt  that  never 
before  had  a  man  been  so  well  born  for  the  impartial  ob- 
servation of  life.  I  therefore  retired  from  actual  living 

293 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

— just  as,  had  I  been  a  believer,  I  should  have  retired  to 
a  monastery — I  committed  suicide  of  the  emotions  and 
the  will,  and  became  the  passive  spectator  of  the  tragic 
humors  of  existence.  I  took  out  of  my  life  all  aspira- 
tion, all  pity,  all  love." 

"How  horrible!" 

"  Horrible !  It  was  life  that  was  horrible.  Before  my 
death  I  heard  the  grass  grow.  Every  drowning  fly  hurt 
me,  every  whipped  horse.  I  wished  to  be  the  voice  of  all 
dumb  creatures.  The  hypocrisies  and  injustices  of  the 
social  order  fretted  every  nerve.  The  mere  reading  of 
history  was  a  torture.  I  could  as  little  live  with  '  men ' 
as  you  could  live  with  the  lepers  of  Assisi,  or  in  satisfy- 
ing sisterhood  with  the  Chinese,  your  soul  uncramped  by 
their  standards." 

"  But  if  everything  was  shadowy,  how  could  it  hurt 
you  so  ?" 

"  That  was  the  paradox :  only  the  suffering  seemed  real. 
Now  I  sit  serene,"  he  puffed  lazily  at  his  cigarette,  "  as 
deaf  to  the  agony  of  my  days  as  to  that  of  antiquity.  I 
had  done  nothing  to  mitigate  that,  why  should  I  stick  my 
little  finger  into  this  ?  I  enjoy  the  strut  of  the  Pharisees 
and  the  Philistines.  The  social  spectacle  gives  me  an  ex- 
quisite and  bitter  laughter.  It  amuses  me  to  see  England 
fooled  by  Bagnell.  I  say  to  suffering  and  injustice,  Let 
me  alone,  cry  to  the  living!" 

"  If  I  believed  you,"  said  Allegra,  "  I  should  think  you 
a  fiend." 

He  rose  and  looked  down  mockingly  at  her,  making 
again  that  monstrous  headless  shadow,  for  only  the  small 
lamp  by  which  Barda  was  knitting  pierced  the  gloom. 
But  Barda's  presence  steadied  Allegra's  nerves,  and  the 
strange  baleful  look  in  his  eyes  did  not  frighten  her. 
"  Didn't  I  say  you  wouldn't  believe  me  ?  But  shall  there 
be  no  peace  even  in  the  grave  ?  How  could  I  live  in  this 
poverty-stricken  Italy  at  all,  unless  I  reminded  myself 
hourly  that  I  am  dead  ?  No,  I  am  content  to  know  and 

29.4 


MORS   ET   VITA 

not  to  be,  and  with  my  small  income  safe  in  consols  I 
rejoice  that  nothing  save  the  bankruptcy  of  England  can 
touch  me  personally." 

"  Niente  ?"  she  asked,  mocking  in  her  turn. 

"  Niente!"  he  replied  fiercely.  Then  in  English, 
"  Cursed  be  she  that  moves  my  bones." 

She  replied  calmly,  almost  rebukingly :  "  And  how  long 
will  you  go  on  like  this  ?" 

"  Until  my  organ  of  consciousness  grows  diseased.  I 
cannot  hope  it  will  always  remain  lucid  and  clear.  The 
nervous  tissues  will  wear  away.  Aphasia  and  amnesia 
will  overtake  my  brain  as  rheumatism  and  senility  my 
body." 

His  deadly  lucidity  made  her  shudder  despite  Barda's 
presence.  He  seemed  like  one  crucified  on  the  cross  of 
consciousness. 

"  But  what  if  the  brain  were  not  the  organ  of  knowl- 
edge ?"  she  remonstrated.  "  Goethe  took  your  own  ideal 
of  omniscience,  but  didn't  he  say,  no  one  can  write  about 
anything  unless  he  writes  about  it  with  love  ?" 

"  Goethe  was  a  creature  of  Courts  and  Kings,  and  mis- 
tresses," he  said  brutally.  "  I  wish  to  be  the  first  man 
to  face  life  straight." 

An  immense  maternal  pity  welled  up  in  her  breast :  all 
her  latent  optimism  resurged  to  do  battle  with  this  sick- 
lier soul. 

"  Shall  I  play  you  something  ?"  she  said  abruptly,  re- 
membering Saul  agonizing  in  his  tent,  "  drear  and  stark, 
blind  and  dumb." 

"  It  would  be  more  pleasant  than  quarrelling.  But 
I  doubt  if  you'll  get  anything  out  of  that  old  piano." 

"  Barda — you  are  nodding.  Go  to  bed."  She  lit  the 
big  lamp  and  gave  Barda  the  little.  Raphael  Dominick 
resumed  his  easy-chair  and  threw  on  another  log.  Al- 
legra  tried  the  keys. 

"  Not  so  bad,"  was  her  verdict.  She  started  a  soft  rip- 
pling melody,  touching  the  notes  lightly  as  though  her 

295 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

fingers  were  soothing  his  forehead.  To-night  the  wind 
was  still,  and  the  room  listened  to  the  cheerful  uprush  of 
the  flame  and  the  gentle  music. 

"  What  was  that  ?"  he  said,  when  she  ceased. 

"  The  Allemande  of  Paradies." 

"  I  don't  know  it.  Play  me  something  else  I  don't 
know." 

She  laughed.  "  That  might  be  as  difficult  as  telling 
you  something  you  don't  know."  She  pondered.  "  Do 
you  know  John  Field's  things  ?" 

"  No." 

"  He  was  an  Englishman  who  lived  in  Russia — a  fore- 
runner of  Chopin."  She  played  a  dreamy  reverie,  but  as 
he  expressed  no  opinion  at  the  close,  her  fingers  glided 
into  the  Melancholic.  When  she  had  finished  that, 
it  struck  her  suddenly  that  she  had  soothed  him 
asleep.  "  A  successful  Schlummerlied,"  she  thought, 
smiling.  She  moved  on  tiptoe  towards  him  and  sat 
down  opposite  him,  and  studied  his  sleeping  face,  so 
spiritual  in  its  repose,  so  different  from  the  animality  of 
that  other  man's  sleeping  face.  And  then  she  thought 
that  on  that  very  spot  where  his  head  was  resting,  Barda's 
head  had  rested  the  night  before,  and  it  came  over  her 
that  he  was  right,  that  he  and  Barda  might  be  inhabitants 
of  different  planets;  ay,  and  if  human  evolution  moved 
through  soul,  not  body,  Robert  Broser,  too,  was  several 
species  behind  Raphael  Dominick. 

She  watched  his  gentle  breathing — his  simple  uncon- 
sciousness. The  universe  had  passed  through  that  brain, 
with  its  seas  and  forests,  and  the  stars  in  their  courses: 
the  panorama  of  history  had  passed  through  it;  the  gro- 
tesque kaleidoscope  of  modern  social  life;  the  arts,  the 
sciences,  the  mathematics,  the  Babel  of  languages ;  Egypt 
and  Babylon  and  the  old  civilizations — what  had  it  not 
harbored  ? 

Through  the  window  the  Southern  night  faced  her,  and 
the  throbbing  clusters  of  stars  in  the  vast  silences.  The 

296 


MORS   ET   VITA 

earth,  bathed  in  moonlight,  continued  its  imperceptible 
spinning.  And  there,  against  the  back  of  the  chair,  lay 
the  head  that  had  reflected  the  immeasurable  vision:  ap- 
parently as  blank  and  dreamless  as  the  chair  itself.  What 
a  mockery  was  human  knowledge !  And  she  knew  that 
the  head  knew  this,  and — when  the  blood-tide  flooded  it 
back  to  consciousness — itself  mocked  at  itself. 

She  groped  for  a  memory,  that  began  calling  to  her 
from  the  deep.  Yes — surely  here  was  the  statue  of  her 
girlish  dream-poem,  the  dead  figure  with  the  heart  of  flesh 
that  felt  impotently  the  tears  of  things. 


CHAPTER   VII 
POWER 

\  PERFUNCTORY  knock  at  the  door  was  followed 
-£V.  by  its  abrupt  opening  and  the  appearance  of  the 
waiter,  with  a  gentleman  behind  him.  Allegra  started 
up  from  her  chair. 

ff  Ecco  la  signora  I" 

The  gentleman  advanced  quickly  towards  her.  Allegra 
grew  scarlet  with  surprise  and  resentment.  It  was  the 
Right  Honorable  Robert  Broser. 

"  Carissima!"  he  said.  It  was  one  of  the  few  Italian 
words  he  had  picked  up.  She  drew  back,  shuddering. 

"  But  I  was  coming  to  Rome  in  the  morning !"  she  said. 

"  Your  sister  was  not  certain.  I  could  not  wait.  I 
caught  the  last  train.  You  forget  how  long  you  have  been 
away  from  me." 

"  It  seems  very  short  to  me."  She  addressed  the  wait- 
er. " II  signore  voule  una  camera — ma  ~buona" 

"  Subito,  signora."     He  smirked  himself  out. 

"  What  did  you  tell  him  ?" 

"  To  get  you  a  good  room." 

He  frowned  at  her.     They  had  not  even  shaken  hands. 

"  You  must  be  very  tired,"  she  said  more  gently. 

"  Not  now  I  see  you."  He  threw  down  his  hat  and  came 
nearer. 

"  No,  no.     We  are  not  alone." 

Startled,  his  eye  followed  her  nod.  Raphael  Dominick 
still  slept  in  his  easy-chair.  Broser's  brow  grew  blacker, 
Allegra's  cheek  redder.  It  came  upon  her  as  a  sudden 

298 


P  O  W  E  K 

embarrassment  that  it  would  be  too  complex  to  explain 
how  the  stranger  came  to  be  in  her  room. 

"  Who  is  this  gentleman  ?"  said  her  husband  grimly, 
yet  half  dazed. 

"  He  is  staying  in  the  hotel." 

"  He  seems  to  be  very  much  at  home  in  your  room." 

His  tone  set  up  her  instinct  of  antagonism  so  strongly 
that  she  heard  her  voice  saying  coldly,  "  It  is  not  my 
room,"  almost  before  she  had  consciously  remembered  that 
this  was  indeed  the  fortunate  case. 

"  Not  your  room  ?     Whose  then  ?     His  ?" 

"  Nobody's — everybody's — the  public  room." 

"  I  find  my  wife  in  a  public  sitting-room !"  His  shock 
was  little  lessened.  His  respect  for  the  Right  Honorable 
Robert  Broser's  wife  amounted  to  a  cult. 

"  There  are  no  private  sitting-rooms." 

"  And  why  did  you  poke  yourself  in  such  a  pig-sty  ? 
I  was  wondering  as  I  came  up  the  fusty  stairs." 

"  I  like  pig-sties.     It  is  the  only  way  of  avoiding  pigs." 

"  Don't  talk  such  nonsense,  Allegra."  He  sniffed. 
"  A  smoking-room,  too !  I'm  glad  your  sleeping  beauty 
isn't  an  Englishman,  and  I  sincerely  trust  your  undigni- 
fied freak  won't  leak  out." 

She  tossed  her  head.     "  Have  you  dined  ?"  she  said. 

"  With  the  Fitzwinters,  but  I  want  a  snack  of  some- 
thing. Oh,  by-the-way,  I  have  brought  some  letters  for 
you.  And  I  have  lots  of  news  and  messages  from  Lon- 
don." 

"  It  is  kind  of  you  to  trouble." 

He  produced  a  little  packet.  "  Joan  gave  me  two.  Five 
I  brought  from  home,  not  reckoning  that  large  unstamped 
one  with  the  printed  envelope  and  the  great  black  seal. 
It  fell  out  of  your  desk." 

"  Out  of  my  desk  ?"     She  took  it,  wondering. 

"  Yes — your  desk  was  overturned  and  flew  open.  That 
was  picked  up  among  the  papers.  It  seems  only  about 
one  of  your  charities,  but  I  brought  it  along." 

299 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

She  opened  it  automatically,  her  mind  engaged  appre- 
hensively in  trying  to  remember  whether  there  was  any- 
thing among  the  other  papers  picked  up  that  she  would 
have  preferred  kept  from  the  servants'  or  her  husband's 
gaze.  But  she  had  only  a  vague  memory  of  old  poems 
buried  deep  down  under  the  accumulations  of  years,  like 
her  own  freshness  of  emotion.  Even  when  she  found  a 
smaller  sealed  envelope  inside,  addressed  in  her  own 
handwriting  "  To  Allegra  at  Forty,"  she  did  not  remember 
that  this  was  the  letter  which  she  had  written  to  herself 
in  her  girlhood,  and  which  (finding  it  in  her  desk  after 
her  marriage)  she  had  sealed  up  for  privacy  in  a  big  print- 
ed charity  envelope.  She  opened  it  wonderingly,  though 
even  her  enemies  did  not  call  her  forty,  and  began  to  read. 

"  MY  DEAR  ALLEGKA, — Although  we  have  not  met  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing 
you  still  by  your  Christian  name." 

Ah,  she  remembered:  tears  started  to  her  eyes.  How 
could  she  read  it  now  in  this  incongruous  environment — 
this  whimsical  appeal  to  her  young  self!  She  turned  the 
page  with  a  confused  sense  of  an  innocent  voice  calling  to 
her  in  the  wilderness.  She  skipped  the  second  page,  read- 
ing only  the  quotation  that  stood  out : 

"  So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 
A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us 
And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness." 

Emotion  overcame  her:  the  lines  radiated  light,  shim- 
mered with  infinite  suggestiveness  and  promise.  She  was 
about  to  put  away  the  letter  for  after-perusal  when  the 
name  "  Eaphael  Dominick  "  caught  her  eye  and  beat  at 
her  heart :  "  Ah,  if  you  should  happen  to  have  married 
a  man  like  Keats  or  Kaphael  Dominick — a  man  with  the 
eye  of  faith  and  the  lips  of  song — then  you  may  at  once 
throw  this  letter  into  the  W.  P.  B." 

300 


POWEE 

O  God !  What  involuted  irony !  And  that  her  letter 
should  reach  her  now  and  thus ! 

She  turned  her  head  involuntarily  towards  the  fire. 
Raphael  Dominick  had  risen,  and  the  two  men  were  sur- 
veying each  other,  the  table  between  them:  it  seemed  to 
Allegra  like  Death  looking  at  Life.  Broser  was  so  aglow 
with  bouncing  vitality:  he  exhaled  success  from  every 
pore.  He  had  grown  stouter,  and  even  ruddier,  and 
seemed  to  throb  with  will-power  as  a  steamer  with  its 
screw.  Seventeen  years  of  fierce  Parliamentary  fighting 
had  left  his  face  fresh  and  clear,  for  he  had  enjoyed  the 
gradual  rise  to  power,  as  a  hard-working  tradesman  enjoys 
the  extension  of  his  business.  If  he  had  found  the  strug- 
gle severer  than  he  had  imagined  in  his  cocksure  begin- 
nings, if  he  had  found  the  lot  of  the  poor  harder  to  amend 
than  in  his  young  days  of  enthusiastic  dissatisfaction  with 
the  universe,  his  ear  had  been  spared  those  deeper  disso- 
nances of  fact  and  dream  which  had  brought  into  Raphael 
Dominick's  face  that  look  of  pained  listening,  those  graven 
lines  of  gloom.  He  had  simply  had  to  smash  his  enemies 
and  back  up  his  friends, — and  he  had  done  both.  And  his 
conception  of  national  policy  was  as  crude.  Getting  a 
fresh  impression  of  him  after  absence,  Allegra  was  aston- 
ished that  she  had  succeeded  so  long  in  keeping  him  at 
arm's-length.  Was  it  that  her  own  will  had  developed 
under  antipathy  ? 

"  Forgive  my  rudeness,  Lady  Allegra,"  said  Raphael 
Dominick.  "  Your  music  must  have  charmed  me  to  sleep." 

His  impeccable  English  startled  Broser  as  it  had  startled 
his  wife.  Allegra  hastened  to  say :  "  You  must  have  been 
very  sleepy  already,  or  my  husband's  arrival  would  have 
woke  you."  She  introduced  the  men,  and  they  nodded 
curtly  to  each  other. 

"  Was  there  anything  urgent  in  that  letter  ?"  her  hus- 
band asked. 

"  Quite  the  contrary,"  she  said,  thinking  ruefully  of  her 
premature  breaking  of  the  seal. 

301 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

The  waiter  popped  in  his  head  to  ask  if  the  signore 
would  inspect  the  room  chosen.  Broser  hesitated.  Al- 
legra stood  in  frozen  dignity.  "  Si"  he  said,  "  and  bring 
me  acqua  calda — I  want  a  wash.  Tell  the  beggar  also  to 
get  me  something  to  eat,  Allegra.  Good-night,  Mr.  Domi- 
nick," he  said,  with  intention. 

Raphael  Dominick  dropped  languidly  into  his  arm- 
chair and  threw  a  log  on  the  fire.  "  Good-night,  Mr. 
Broser." 

The  Right  Honorable  gentleman  banged  the  door. 

"  We  had  better  say  good-night,  Mr.  Dominick,"  said 
Allegra  quickly,  "  and  good-bye  too.  I  shall  go  by  the 
first  train.  I  could  not  bear  to  be  in  Orvieto  any  longer." 

"  Ah,  you  would  hear  only  the  voice  of  the  living !" 

"Alas!" 

He  got  up.  "  But  you  play  beautifully.  And  I  did 
not  sleep  in  vain — I  had  a  dream.  From  heaven,  chi  sa? 
You  said  you  were  tired  of  society,  that  you  prayed  for 
deliverance." 

"  Yes  ?"     Her  eyes  flashed  eagerly. 

"  Could  you  spare  an  hour,  say  twice  a  week  ?" 

"  Certainly." 

"  Then  go  to  a  flat,  whose  address  I've  scribbled  on  this 
card — it's  quite  near  you — a  Japanese  man  in  armor  will 
receive  you.  There  you  will  play  on  the  piano — a  grand 
and  good." 

She  took  the  card.  "  It  sounds  like  the  Arabian 
Nights.  And  when  I  play,  you  will  appear  ?" 

"  JSTot  at  all.     I  may  never  appear." 

"  Then  I  sha'n't  play." 

"  Yes,  you  will.     My  complementary  half  lives  there." 

"  Your  complementary —  ?" 

"  A  girl  who  is  dying — crudely  dying  of  an  incurable 
and  agonizing  disease.  A  girl  who  can  neither  live  nor 
die." 

"How  ghastly!" 

"  It  is  only  her  body.  Being  my  complement,  she  lives 

302 


POWER 

intensely  by  her  emotions  and  her  faith.  This  Kath- 
erine  Engelborne  has  a  sister,  Margaret,  who  lives  only 
for  her,  and  who,  I  fear,  is  dying  of  her.  Margaret  used 
to  give  her  the  consolation  of  music,  but  the  Nemesis 
which  dogs  virtue  dislocated  her  shoulder-bone." 

"  But  hasn't  she  any  friends — in  this  piano  age  ?" 

"  Even  Heine's  friends  wearied  of  the  dead-alive.  I 
will  write  her  that  you  are  coming.  One  day  you  will 
knock  and  say,  '  Here  I  am.' ' 

"  But  the  girl  may  be  dead." 

"  I  fear  not.     Perhaps  Margaret  may." 

"  And  what  shall  be  my  reward  ?  The  Nemesis  that 
dogs  virtue  ?" 

"  You  will  meet  my  only  Christian." 

"  Margaret  ?" 

"  Yes.  Not  having  been  brought  up  as  a  Christian,  I 
have  always  been  curious — in  my  thirst  for  omniscience 
— to  know  what  this  rare  species  was  like,  or  whether  it 
was  entirely  mythical." 

"  And  Margaret  is  the  only  one  you've  met." 

"  Yes — and  even  she  isn't  a  Christian."  He  smiled 
whimsically  as  he  gave  her  his  hand.  "  Good-night  and 
good-bye." 

"  Good-bye,"  she  murmured,  with  no  responsive  smile, 
but  with  oppressive  emotion.  "  I  will  go  to  her.  I  will 
be  a  bit  of  a  Christian — for  your  sake." 

Broser  found  her  reading  the  letter  to  herself,  the  others 
still  unopened.  She  put  it  hastily  away  when  he  entered. 

He  saw  it  and  looked  suspicious.  "  He's  gone,  is  he  ? 
Where  is  Barda  ?" 

"  In  bed." 

He  picked  up  a  card  on  the  table.  "  Raphael  Domi- 
nick!"  he  said  aloud,and  threw  it  fireward. 

"  Oh,  I  want  that  card,"  said  Allegra.  "  It  has  an  ad- 
dress." 

He  rescued  it,  looked  at  the  address  pencilled,  and  gave 
it  to  her  silently.  The  waiter  brought  him  a  cold  fowl 

303 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

and  salad  and  the  best  bottle  of  wine  in  the  house,  and  he 
supped  voraciously,  flinging  Allegra  the  home  news  be- 
tween mouthfuls.  He  spoke  of  the  children  with  pride 
and  affection — he  loved  his  brood — and  of  a  large  addi- 
tion to  his  income  consequent  on  the  falling  in  of  some 
leases  of  Midstoke  property  he  had  inherited  from  his  poor 
old  father.  She  listened,  reading  her  letters.  When  he 
was  satisfied,  he  went  over  to  her  and  captured  her  soft 
warm  fingers. 

"  Has  my  little  Allegra  no  welcome  for  me  after  all  my 
journey  ?" 

"  I  hope  the  holiday  will  refresh  you.  Parliament 
must  have  risen  rather  early  for  the  Easter  recess." 

"  I  did  not  wait.  There  was  nothing  further  for  me  to 
do  in  the  House.  I  had  better  work.  I  am  to  have  an 
audience  with  the  Pope,  and  we  are  to  attend  Mass  in  the 
Sistine  Chapel.  I  have  brought  my  ministerial  dress." 

The  juxtaposition  of  the  venerable  Pope  and  Broser 
made  her  smile — the  smile  of  Raphael  Dominick. 

"  Ah,  you  are  pleased,"  he  said.  "  But  you  will  have 
to  wear  black,  and  I  prefer  you  in  white,  as  to-night." 

Her  loveliness  was  infinitely  alluring  to  him  after  his 
lonely  journey  ings.  The  strange  shabby  room  and  the 
log  fire,  and  the  old-world  town — all  stimulated  his  sense 
of  romance.  His  wife  moved  him  afresh;  he  was  angry 
with  himself  for  having  let  her  slip  away  from  him  too 
easily  in  the  whirl  of  politics.  His  ambitions  had  occu- 
pied his  whole  soul :  enough  to  kill  a  Bill  or  a  Minister, 
to  circumvent  a  rival,  or  carry  a  measure  unscathed 
through  furnaces  of  foiled  hate.  Now,  in  this  holiday 
moment,  he  felt  that  nothing  could  replace  the  loss  of 
Allegra's  love. 

He  bent  his  cheek  to  touch  hers,  but  she  sprang  away 
and  wrested  herself  free.  His  dignity  and  hers  forbade 
that  he  should  provoke  the  noise  of  a  scuffle,  but  his  face 
grew  demoniac,  his  eyes  protruded  almost  comically:  the 
expression  of  gigantic  will  ludicrously  self-baffled. 

304 


POWER 

"  Do  you  permit  me  at  least  to  smoke  a  cigar  ?"  he  said 
sardonically. 

"  I  permit  you  anything  that  excludes  me." 

He  gave  a  sneering  laugh,  and  seating  himself  upon 
Dominick's  vacated  chair,  surrounded  himself  fiendishly 
with  thick  volumes  of  smoke,  that  had,  however,  a  heav- 
enly smell.  "  Won't  you  take  the  other  arm-chair  ?" 

But  she  would  not  profane  her  memories.  "  I  prefer 
this,"  she  said,  and  seated  herself  rigidly  nearer  the  table 
than  the  fire.  There  was  a  silence. 

"  So  this  is  your  conception  of  a  wife's  duty !"  he  said 
at  last. 

"  I  tell  you  for  the  hundredth  time — I  will  give  you 
everything  except  love.  In  what  else  have  I  been  re- 
miss ?" 

"  You  scarcely  consulted  my  dignity  when  you  came 
here." 

"  I  will  be  more  careful." 

Her  unexpected  humility  softened  him,  gave  him  new 
hope.  At  the  worst  he  had  this  glorious  creature  to 
flaunt  before  the  world. 

"  If  you  don't  consider  your  own  rank,  you  should  re- 
member that  the  Premiership  is  almost  within  my  grasp. 
And  but  for  the  drag  of  your  domestic  arguments,  of  the 
perpetual  critic  on  the  hearth,  I  should  have  grasped  it 
already.  You  have  never  understood  politics." 

"  It  is  true.  I  only  understood  principles.  I  will  nev- 
er argue  any  more  with  you."  She  was  ready  to  promise 
anything,  anything  that  would  cut  her  life  away  from 
his.  He  was  unscrupulous :  let  her  accept  it,  as  Raphael 
Dominick  accepted  what  he  could  not  alter. 

"  Now  you  speak  sense,  Allegra.  Trust  me  and  I  will 
yet  carry  out  your  principles.  Unless  one  is  Premier 
one  is  so  hampered.  How  much  nicer  it  would  be  if  I 
could  tell  you  my  plans,  sure  of  your  sympathy.  That 
would  be  a  true  partnership." 

"  I  am  sorry.     I  will  do  my  best  in  future." 

305 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Thank  you."  He  reached  out  his  hand  again  and 
took  hers  and  it  lay  passively  in  his  own.  "  Let  me  tell 
you,  then,  that  my  visit  to  the  Pope  is  only  a  blind.  In 
reality  I  left  England  last  Thursday,  though  even  The 
Morning  Mirror  announced  that  I  left  Saturday  night, 
receiving  an  ovation  on  the  platform  of  Victoria  Sta- 
tion. He's  very  smart,  that  new  secretary  of  mine,  and 
in  with  all  the  press  agencies."  He  chuckled,  glad  as 
ever  of  a  confidante  for  his  cleverness. 

"  You  did  go  somewhere  else  first,  then  ?" 

"  Don't  give  it  away  to  Fizzy.  I  went  to  Brussels  to 
meet  Sir  Donald  Bagnell  and  representatives  of  the  north- 
ern countries  that  have  percentages  on  the  Novabarbese 
railways,  or  suzerainty  over  parts  of  the  country.  Of 
course  I  didn't  dare  meet  Bagnell  in  England." 

Novabarba !  The  fatal  word  sucked  the  blood  from  her 
cheek.  Oh,  but  this  was  horrible,  incredible. 

"  We've  settled  the  concessions  they  are  to  get  in  com- 
pensation, when  England  acquires  the  country." 

"  But  how  will  England  acquire  it  ?  Most  of  the  tribes 
are  still  independent." 

"  That  was  Lord  Huston's  mistake.  They  must  be  con- 
quered again." 

"  On  what  pretext  ?" 

"  Pretexts  we  have  always  with  us — like  the  poor." 

"  Yes,  poor  pretexts — the  wolf's  to  the  lamb !"  She 
rose  in  agitation. 

"  Not  at  all.  We  don't  desire  to  eat  'em :  only  to  civilize 
'em." 

"  To  shear  'em,  you  mean." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders :  "  They're  dirty — and  too 
lazy  to  develop  their  own  country.  The  dark  places  of  the 
earth  must  be  lit  up." 

"  That  the  electric-light  companies  may  make  a  profit !" 

"  Why  not  ?  If  I  add  Novabarba  to  the  Empire,  I 
shall  ultimately  become  Premier.  Granted.  But  all 
the  same  it  is  the  march  of  civilization." 

306 


POWER 

"  And  the  Dead  March  of  Christianity !  I  can  see  the 
tribes  mowed  down  by  your  machine-guns.  Oh,  how  can 
you  wade  through  blood  to  your  throne  ?" 

He  flushed  angrily :  "  Have  you  forgotten  your  promise 
already  ?" 

"  My  promise !  My  promise !"  She  laughed  half 
hysterically.  "  And  what  of  your  promise  to  my  father 
whose  mantle  you  were  to  inherit  ?  What  of  your  prom- 
ise to  me  ?  We  were  to  make  an  end  of  war — you  and  I. 
My  God,  a  pretty  pair !" 

"  And  so  we  shall,  Allegra,  so  we  shall.  The  more  we 
consolidate  the  world  into  great  empires,  the  more  we  check 
these  internecine  racial  insanities.  You  are  a  woman — 
you  see  only  the  crude  present  fact.  But  we  politicians — 
we  have  to  dream  and  build  for  generations  to  come." 
She  was  silenced  for  a  moment.  "  If  you  only  trusted  me 
a  little,  Allegra,"  he  said  pathetically. 

"  But  how  can  I  trust  you  ?  It  was  Novabarba  for 
which  my  father  sacrificed  his  career ;  it  was  the  Novabar- 
bese  war  that  killed  my  brother,  and  made  you  and  me 
swear  to  war  against  war." 

"  We  were  young.  Good  heavens,  Allegra,  do  you  still 
hold  the  opinions  you  expressed  to  your  dolls  ?  Why,  ha ! 
ha !  ha !  it  was  in  a  nursery  that  we  made  our  highfalutin 
compact.  Accept  the  omen."  He  threw  away  the  cigar 
that  had  gone  out  in  the  argument  and  lit  another. 

Her  brain  was  busy  reviving  the  tragic  scene  in  that 
nursery,  and  she  did  not  share  his  laughter.  He  went  on 
complacently : 

"  Do  you  think  that  Sir  William  Orr-Stenton,  the  Gov- 
ernor of  British  Novabarba,  would  recommend  war  unless 
he  believed  it  was  justified  ?" 

"  Does  he  recommend  war  ?" 

"  To  tell  you  another  secret,  yes.  He  has  advised  the 
Colonial  Office  that  if  we  don't  annex,  one  of  the  northern 
countries  will.  Isn't  it  better  it  should  fall  into  the  hands 
of  England  and  get  the  boon  of  British  government  ?" 

307 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Sir  William  Orr-Stenton  is  an  English  gentleman, 
and  you  know  I  still  consider  that  order  the  highest  in 
Europe." 

"  Well,  then !"  he  said  triumphantly. 

"  But  when  he  was  Colonel  Orr-Stenton  and  I  was  a 
girl,  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  him  at  Rosmere.  And  in  his 
mind's  eye  he  sees  the  whole  round  globe  under  the  British 
flag — like  one  of  those  Christmas  puddings,  with  a  flag 
stuck  in  it." 

"  So  do  I,  Allegra,  so  do  I.  It  is  the  note  of  English 
gentlemen.  And  what  a  delightful  destiny  for  the  globe — 
to  be  a  Christmas  pudding.  Peace  on  earth  and  plums  to 
all  men.  It  is  your  father's  very  ideal,  and  if  I  help  to 
bring  it  about,  I  shall  be  truly  the  inheritor  of  his  mantle. 
And  you  accuse  me  of  not  keeping  my  promise!"  He 
laughed,  highly  pleased  with  his  neat  Parliamentary 
repartee. 

Allegra  bit  her  lips.  "  I  shall  keep  mine,"  she  said. 
"  I  was  a  fool  to  argue.  Good-night." 

He  sprang  up :  "  And  you'll  not  tell  your  inconvenient 
brother-in-law  ?" 

"  An  English  gentleman  should  understand  the  laws  of 
honor.  Good-night." 

"  Not  without  a  kiss  ?" 

She  snatched  up  the  lamp,  half  in  defiance.  Their 
shadows  shifted  grotesquely.  "  Ring  for  another,"  she 
said.  "  I  need  this  for  my  room." 

"  Put  it  down  and  say  '  Good-night '  like  a  good  little 
girl." 

"  No  murderer's  lips  shall  touch  mine." 

He  laughed  sneer ingly.  "  You  are  becoming  melodra- 
matic. You  remind  me  of  the  Midstoke  Theatre  Royal." 

"  Remember  rather  the  Midstoke  Town  Hall." 

He  winced.  But  her  defiance  stung  his  blood,  intensi- 
fied her  piquancy.  "  Come,"  he  said  more  lightly. 
"  You  cry  '  Peace,  Peace,'  and  you  are  all  war.  Let  us 
kiss  and  make  it  up." 

308 


POWER 

"  Not  if  you  are  to  bring  this  war." 

"  Your  terms  are  high,  my  dear  Allegra.  The  Premier- 
ship for  a  kiss  ?  They  ask  less  even  in  the  Charity 
Bazaars." 

"  Good-night !"  She  pushed  back  the  panel,  disgusted, 
passed  through,  and  slid  it  back.  But  he  stuck  his  foot 
in  the  aperture  ere  it  closed,  laughing  good-humoredly. 

"  Sliding  panels,  too !  No  wonder  we  are  melo- 
dramatic." 

She  put  down  the  lamp  on  a  chair  and  tried  to  close 
the  panel.  "  I'll  scream  for  Barda,"  she  threatened. 

"  Little  spitfire !  You  shall  have  your  terms.  All  for 
love,  or  the  world  well  lost."  And,  as  she  hesitated  a  mo- 
ment, he  thrust  back  the  panel  and  kissed  her  on  the  lips. 
"Good-night,  you  little  fool,"  he  laughed.  "All's  fair 
in  love  and  war — and  this  is  both.  What  do  you  think  of 
my  melodrama  ?" 

And  as  he  went  to  his  room  he  pondered  on  the  vexa- 
tiousness  and  feather-headedness  of  the  modern  woman, 
thrusting  her  pretty  personality  into  affairs  of  state.  But 
all  the  same  he  felt  that  the  situation  between  them  had 
been  improved. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
TALK   AND   TRUMPET 

FIZZY  was  enjoying  himself,  chaffing  the  Right  Hon- 
orable Robert  Broser  for  the  amusement  of  the  ladies 
and  the  mystification  of  the  Italian  Deputy  who  had  been 
Fizzy's  dinner  guest,  in  his  magnificent  suite 'of  apart- 
ments in  the  hotel  at  Rome.  All  the  men  were  smoking 
(by  request).  Fizzy's  Radical  spirits  had  not  been  damp- 
ed either  by  age  or  matrimony,  but  Broser  refused  to  take 
either  him  or  the  attacks  of  the  Mirror  seriously.  The 
Deputy  took  both  men  very  seriously  as  illustrious  British 
.Deputies,  and  this  dinner  would  figure  in  his  Memoirs, 
lie  spoke  English  and  was  a  great  admirer  of  English  in- 
stitutions. In  Rome  he  was  a  rabid  Socialist,  with  a 
venomous  hatred  of  the  Vatican,  and  whenever  he  stopped 
in  his  street  walks,  ground  his  teeth,  rapped  the  pave- 
ment with  his  cane,  and  barked  out  oaths,  his  friends 
knew  that  a  cardinal's  carriage  was  within  eyeshot.  He 
was  an  ecclesiastical  pointer  or  setter.  "  Those  cursed 
intolerant  priests !"  was  his  mildest  invective.  Joan,  too, 
had  abated  no  jot  of  her  atheism,  and  Allegra, lonely  among 
them  all,  felt  in  herself  stirrings  of  all  sorts  of  mysteri- 
ous impulses,  vague  instincts,  flashes  of  insight,  divina- 
tions, emotions,  which  to  them  were  apparently  as  mu- 
sic to  the  deaf:  she  reached  out  as  with  antennae  tow- 
ards a  dim,  evasive,  yet  pervasive  spiritual  world,  of 
which  they  had  no  suspicion.  Was  there  indeed  more 
than  fancy  in  Raphael  Dominick's  theory  of  new  species 
groping  to  adjust  themselves  to  new  spiritual  environ- 
ments ? 

310 


"  Ah,  you  are  a  great  man,  Bob,"  said  Fizzy.  "  I  am 
wondering  what  poor  corpse  you  are  destined  to  displace 
at  Westminster  Abbey.  That  is  our  Pantheon,  you 
know,"  he  explained  to  the  Deputy,  "  but  it  is  so  chockful 
that  whenever  we  wish  to  bury  a  new  god  we  have  to  dig 
up  an  obscure  citizen  who  was  buried  there  before  we 
made  it  a  temple." 

"  Not  really  ?"  exclaimed  Lady  Joan. 

Fizzy  puffed  out  a  mouthful  of  smoke.  "  When  Lord 
Huston  had  that  great  national  funeral,  the  sextons  quiet- 
ly chucked  a  poor  peaceful  citizen  into  the  Thames:  as 
quietly  as  they  smuggle  corpses  out  of  this  hotel  in  the 
height  of  the  season." 

"  But  that  is  scandalous !"  his  wife  cried. 

Fizzy  squeezed  her  fingers  affectionately.  "  Aha !  have 
I  found  a  new  grievance  for  my  pretty  to  play  with  ?" 

Broser  laughed.     "  There  will  be  a  new  Society." 

"  Yes.  The  Anti  -  Ghoul  Association,"  said  Fizzy. 
"  A  Home  for  h'less  millionaires  will  be  her  next  institu- 
tion. Still  it's  not  for  me  to  complain.  In  my  far-off 
bachelor  days  people  said  The  Morning  Mirror  was  Satan's 
own  paper:  now  they  say,  Fizzy's  not  so  bad  for  all  his 
brilliance.  Look  what  his  wife  does  for  poor  drunken 
temperance  lecturers." 

"  Ah !"  said  the  Deputy  sagely. 

"  Yes,  I  wonder  myself  to  see  how  my  wife  gratifies 
her  unselfishness  all  day  long.  She  weeps  even  over 
the  waiters  limping  at  nightfall.  She  reminds  me  of  the 
image  of  the  Virgin  I  saw  in  the  Canary  Islands,  which 
has  a  tear  screwed  into  each  cheek,  and  only  smiles  on 
Corpus  Christi  Day,  when  they  are  taken  out." 

"  Ah,  those  scoundrelly  priests !"  cried  the  Deputy. 

"  Leave  the  priests  alone,"  said  Fizzy.  "  The  fact  that 
my  valet  believes  in  the  next  world  saves  policemen  in 
this." 

"  But  the  waiters  here  are  shamefully  overworked,"  per- 
sisted Joan,  unabashed.  "  I  shall  not  come  to  this  hotel 

311 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

again.     That   Hotel   de   Castile   looks   attractive.     Is   it 
quite  respectable  ?"  she  asked  the  Deputy. 

"  My  wife  means,  is  it  an  hotel  where  ladies  can  smoke 
cigarettes  and  have  golden  hair  ?" 

"  Oh  yes !"  said  the  Deputy,  and  the  others  laughed. 

"  Golden  hair  seems  to  be  in  circulation  again,"  said 
Broser. 

"  I  wish  I  could  get  change  for  my  silver,"  said  Fizzy 
ruefully. 

Lady  Joan  passed  her  hand  lovingly  over  his  white 
hair.  "  Don't,"  she  said.  "  That  would  leave  you  almost 
bald — at  the  current  rate  of  exchange."  This  time  even 
the  Deputy  laughed. 

"  Did  I  ever  tell  you  I  was  in  China  when  the  amusing 
gold-silver  gang  were  exposed  ?"  asked  Fizzy. 

"  No,"  Lady  Allegra  laughed.  "  But  we  know  you 
have  been  everywhere  when  anything  happened." 

"  The  gold-silver  gang  quartered  themselves  in  different 
coigns  of  China,  which  then  knew  even  less  about  '  foreign 
devils '  than  now,  and  began  steadily  giving  the  Chinese 
twenty  English  sovereigns  in  return  for  one  English  shil- 
ling." 

The  ladies  gasped. 

"  What  daring !"  said  Broser  admiringly.  "  And  so 
they  hoodwinked  the  Chinese  into  the  belief  that  silver 
was  the  metal  that  was  twenty  times  as  valuable  as  gold  ?" 

"  Yes,"  replied  Fizzy,  "  as  certain  politicians  bamboozle 
the  British  as  to  which  is  the  really  valuable  national  ideal. 
After  some  months  of  this  unblushing  persistence  that  gold 
was  silver  and  silver  gold,  the  Chinese  began  eagerly 
bringing  them  their  gold  for  small  bits  of  silver.  But  in 
the  end  the  rogues'  ears  were  cut  off.  We  British,"  he 
blew  a  smoke-cloud  at  his  brother-in-law,  "  only  eject  them 
from  office.  For  my  part,  so  long  as  I  get  twenty  shillings 
over  the  counter  for  my  gold  piece,  I  don't  care  who  keeps 
the  bureau.  I'd  as  lief  be  governed  from  New  York  or 
Berlin  as  from  London." 

312 


TALK  AND    TRUMPET 

"  Surely  not !  Surely  not !"  said  the  bewildered  Dep- 
uty. 

"  Well,  perhaps  New  York  is  too  far  off.  But  Berlin 
— why  not  ?  We  should  learn  German  quicker,  and  there 
would  still  be  suppers  after  the  play.  The  dirty  work 
of  government  could  be  taken  off  our  hands,  as  we've 
taken  it  off  the  hands  of  the  Hindoos.  We  don't  possess 
India,  by-the-way;  it  possesses  us,  and  sits  smoking  its 
opium-pipe  while  we  fuss  in  the  sun.  The  British  Em- 
pire is  only  a  great  firm  of  Government  Contractors,  sup- 
plying Governments  as  Gunter's  supplies  ball-suppers." 

"  I  wish  it  would  take  over  Italy,"  sighed  the  Deputy. 

"It  is  doing  so,  with  the  help  of  America.  Already 
Anglo-Saxon  capital  runs  your  electric  cars  and  your  fac- 
tories. That  is  real  conquest,  real  possession.  Military 
conquest  is  only  skin-deep.  England  is  really  a  French 
conquest — the  greatest  boast  of  our  families  is  to  have 
come  over  with  the  Conqueror.  Yet  the  Saxon  absorbed 
his  Gallic  conquerors.  To  plant  one's  self  inside  a  lion 
is  not  to  conquer  the  lion." 

"Bravo!"  cried  Broser.  "That's  the  first  time  I've 
heard  you  do  justice  to  the  British  Lion.  You  are  right: 
we  shall  soon  be  running  Italy  as  a  picture  gallery." 

A  waiter  here  appeared  to  say  that  an  old  lady  wished 
to  see  Lady  Allegra  Broser.  She  was  in  the  public  draw- 
ing-room :  she  would  not  come  up.  No,  nor  give  her  name. 
She  had  an  ear-trumpet.  Oh,  yes,  sufficiently  well  dressed, 
the  waiter  assured  Broser.  Nobody  could  identify  her,  and 
Allegra  cut  the  interrogatory  short  by  volunteering  to  de- 
scend. She  pushed  open  the  swinging  door  timidly,  for 
the  room  was  full  of  people  in  evening  dress,  and  she  had 
never  entered  it  before,  not  because  she  was  Broser's  wife, 
but  because  of  her  personal  shrinking  from  the  wealthy 
tourist.  She  had,  however,  met  many  ladies  in  the  hall 
and  on  the  stairs  who  had  struck  up  an  informal  speaking 
acquaintance  with  her.  In  fact  she  could  not  but  be  aware 
that  their  anxiety  to  talk  about  the  weather  and  her  health 

313 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

had  exceeded  the  due  courtesies  of  hotel  life.  As  she 
entered,  a  group  clustered  round  her.  Near  her,  she  was 
morbidly  conscious  of  another  group  of  ladies  and  gentle- 
men listening  eagerly,  almost  reverentially,  to  the  disquisi- 
tions of  a  horrible  American  boy  of  about  twelve,  who  was 
holding  forth  on  the  history  and  antiquities  of  Italy. 

"  It  was  in  Perugia  that  the  Baglioni — " 

"  Show  me  Perugia  on  the  map,  dear,"  said  a  stout 
lady. 

"  There,  mother.     The  capital  of  Umbria !" 

"  The  capital,  dear  ?     But  it's  not  in  the  middle." 

"  Don't  be  so  stupid,  mother.  You've  put  me  out.  At 
Perugia  we  have  got  to  see  some  more  Pinturicchios." 

She  was  disgusted :  "  I  thought  we  were  through  with 
those!" 

"  We  had  such  lots  in  the  churches  here,"  her  husband 
added. 

"  Well,  anyhow,  I  guess  you'll  have  to  do  the  Peru- 
ginos,"  said  the  boy  relentingly. 

"  Perugino !"  cried  another  lady  in  self-congratulatory 
accents.  "  I  got  through  with  him  when  I  was  a  girl." 

Lady  Allegra's  eyes  roved  in  search  of  the  old  lady 
with  the  ear-trumpet.  And  presently  she  found  the  stran- 
ger sitting  stiffly,  but  very  lonesome-looking,  in  a  deserted 
corner.  She  disentangled  herself  from  her  gushing  ac- 
quaintances, and  walked  towards  the  pathetic  old-fashion- 
ed figure,  so  pointedly  ignored  of  all  this  swiftly  sociable 
crowd. 

"  O  Alligator,  how  your  dress  smells  of  smoke !"  And 
even  before  she  had  felt  the  old  motherly  kiss,  she  knew 
by  this  scolding  that  she  and  the  Duchess  she  had  fail- 
ed to  recognize  were  friends  again.  "  Somehow  it  was 
easier  to  see  you  abroad  than  at  home,"  the  Duchess  ex- 
plained, and  Allegra  cut  short  her  apology  by  taking  the 
whole  blame  of  the  long  separation  upon  herself.  It  was 
delightful  in  her  loneliness  to  rest  upon  this  garrulous 
breast  and  to  know,  too,  that  she  comforted  itt  and  she 

314 


TALK   AND   TRUMPET 

listened  to  the  Duchess's  "  extensions  of  egotism,"  and  to 
her  plaints  of  the  degenerate  age  (whose  so-called  gentle- 
men smoked  even  in  the  Row)  with  a  loving  tolerance  she 
had  not  felt  in  her  girlhood. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  didn't  get  to  Rome  before  the  Beast 
arrived !"  said  the  Duchess. 

"  You  talk  like  Revelations,"  smiled  Allegra. 

"  Revelations !  I  dare  say  you  have  had  plenty  of 
Revelations  of  what  he  is.  A  Beast  like  that  to  get  a 
Beauty  like  you,  and  to  have  our  beloved  country  under 
his  unwashed  thumb." 

"  But  you  agree  with  his  poli — "  Allegra  protested  into 
the  ear-trumpet. 

"  Yes,  I'm  glad  you  agree  with  me,"  interrupted  the 
Duchess,  and  hastily  shifted  the  trumpet.  "  I  always  said 
you'd  come  round  to  my  views  in  everything — when  you 
were  older."  And  she  refused  to  raise  the  trumpet  for 
the  reception  of  Allegra's  contradiction,  but  rattled  on. 
Allegra,  amused,  saw  that  her  aunt  had  now  a  new  weapon 
in  the  battle  of  existence — "  a  detachable  weapon  of  de- 
fence, Raphael  Dominick  would  have  phrased  it,"  she 
thought.  But  she  was  determined  to  foil  it,  and  waiting 
till  the  dear  dogmatic  old  creature  had  automatically  re- 
sumed this  detachable  ear,  she  persisted :  "  What  I  said 
before  was — Mr.  Broser  agrees  with  you." 

"  Mr.  Broser  agrees  with  me !  Like  goose-liver  at  mid- 
night." 

"  But  he's  on  your  side  now." 

"  Fightin'  Bob  on  my  side !     Never !" 

"  But  he  is !  He's  changed  his  coat.  And  he'll  have 
a  coat>-of-arms  too,  some  day,"  she  added  provokingly. 

"  He !  I'll  swallow  my  'scutcheon  first.  How  you 
could  cover  him  with  your  coat-of-arms !  Phaugh!  I 
blush  for  you,  Alligator." 

Allegra  was  human  enough  to  dislike  being  told  "  I 
told  you  so  "  by  the  person  who  had  actually  done  it,  es- 
pecially as — despite  the  brisk  chatter  around — curious 

315 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

ears  might  be  straining  towards  this  corner  of  theirs. 
"  I  thought  you  came  to  make  it  up,"  she  replied  coldly. 

"  I  did.  I  came  to  make  up  for  fifteen  years' 
silence.  Oh,  I  am  boilin' !  How  have  you  been  able 
to  live  with  him  ?" 

"  How  is  the  Duke  ?" 

"  We  are  talkin'  of  the  Demagogue." 

"  But  he's  not  a  Demagogue.  He  leads  all  you 
aristo — " 

But  the  Duchess  peremptorily  removed  her  trumpet. 
"  Wasn't  I  a  true  prophet  ?  Didn't  I  tell  you  power  was 
all  he  was  after?"  and  she  hugged  her  trumpet  to  her 
breast,  refusing  the  right  of  reply.  But  Allegra,  nettled, 
replied  all  the  same — as  loudly  as  she  dared — 

"  Yes,  but  you  prophesied  he  wouldn't  get  it.  You  said 
he'd  never  be  in  office." 

"  Yes,  in  an  office !  That's  where  he  ought  to  be.  I'm 
glad  you  admit  I  was  right.  Perhaps  in  future,  Alligator, 
you  will  trust  your  Aunt  Emma  ?"  And  she  put  the  trum- 
pet pleadingly  to  her  ear.  "  Tell  me  everything,  dear." 

"  There  is  nothing  at  all  to  tell." 

"  Ah,  you  will  tell  me  all.     That's  right." 

"  No,  that's  wrong.     You  didn't  hear  me." 

"  ~No,  so  you  may  talk  without  fear.  You  got  over  your 
infatuation  very  soon,  didn't  you  ?  Ah,  I'm  glad  you  are 
blushin' !  That's  the  Marjorimont  blood  showin'  itself 
after  all."  Glowing  with  satisfaction,  the  Duchess  pro- 
ceeded to  make  complimentary  remarks  about  her  family 
in  general  and  to  congratulate  herself  in  particular  on 
having  proved  a  Cassandra.  "  I  always  said  the  mar- 
riage would  turn  out  a  miserable  failure.  Ah,  my  dear, 
I  never  thought  I  should  come  to  agree  with  the  new 
woman,  but  when  I  look  at  my  poor  Alligator,  I  could 
wish  women  were  not  freehold.  The  lease  should  be 
terminable." 

"  I  wish  it  was,"  Allegra  murmured.  And  the  Duchess 
enchanted,  babbled  on :  "  I'm  so  glad  you  haven't  a  baby, 

316 


TALK   AND   TRUMPET 

though  I'm  not  so  pleased  with  my  Minnie.  I  don't  know 
what's  comin'  over  the  women.  It  was  bad  enough 
when  they  had  babies  and  no  husbands:  now  they 
have  husbands  and  no  babies.  As  for  London  society, 
I  can't  set  foot  in  it.  People  talk  of  nothing  but 
Stock  Exchange  and  racin'  -  tips.  The  parvenu  pluto- 
crats have  it  all  their  own  way,  and  spend  as  much  on 
the  flowers  as  we  used  to  do  on  the  season.  You  heard 
how  that  little  Russian  actress  was  allowed  in  the  Royal 
Quadrille  at  the  Court  ball,  and  how  that  Mrs.  Duncan 
was  in  the  enclosure  at  Ascot.  Stanfield  House  is  the  only 
decent  house  left,  and  when  the  Duke  dies,  even  that  will 
join  the  smart  set,  especially  if  the  heir  marries  that  Miss 
^forth,  as  they  say  he  will,  though  she  is  twenty-nine. 
Ah,  they  are  a  bad  lot,  the  heirs." 

"  But  what  about  my  house  ?  Won't  you  come  to  that, 
Aunt?" 

But  the  ear-trumpet  would  not  receive  the  question. 
Allegra  saw  the  Duchess  to  the  hotel  door. 

"Good-bye,  Alligator!"  She  kissed  her.  "Oh,  I've 
forgotten  my  purse.  Go  and  get  it." 

Allegra  went  back  to  the  drawing-room. 

"  So  you've  got  rid  of  your  frumpy  caller,"  smilingly 
cried  a  lady  in  elegant  toilette,  anxious  to  put  herself  on 
Allegra's  plane  and  at  the  same  time  relieve  her  ladyship 
of  the  imputation  of  having  descended  from  it. 

"  The  Duchess  of  Dalesbury  is  my  aunt,"  Allegra  re- 
plied with  a  touch  of  malice. 

Consternation  spread  through  the  drawing-room. 

As  the  Duchess  walked  off  purse  in  hand,  her  heart 
was  warm  with  virtue  and  venom.  She  had  humbled  her- 
self to  meet  again  the  darling  child  who  had  so  strangely 
fascinated  her  at  first  sight,  and  after  whom  she  had  hank- 
ered all  those  obstinate  lonely  years  since  Minnie's  mar- 
riage. But  her  sweet  Alligator  had  humbled  herself  in 
turn,  had  admitted  her  prophetic  sagacity,  nay,  had  come 

317 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

to  partake  her  abhorrence  of  the  Dragon.  Was  there  no 
way  of  rescuing  her  from  him?  Why  did  he  not  die? 
This  new  certainty  of  Alligator's  unhappiness,  coming 
on  top  of  her  morbid  hatred  of  the  man,  swelled  her  poor 
old  brain  almost  to  bursting  point.  She  felt  like  rushing 
back  to  the  hotel  and  bearing  off  Alligator  then  and 
thence,  leaving  Broser  wifeless  and  howling.  How  dared 
the  brute  claw  and  domineer  over  a  Marjorimont — a  sweet 
young  thing  like  that,  too ! 

"  Oh,  my  poor  Alligator,  my  poor  Alligator,"  she  moan- 
ed, and  the  passers-by  in  the  Piazza  turned  and  looked  at 
the  old  lady  with  the  ear-trumpet.  But  her  venom  ebbed, 
old  lady  with  the  ear-trumpet.  But  her  venom  ebbed, 
and  only  the  high  tide  of  virtue  was  left.  That  darling 
Alligator !  How  sweet  to  feel  the  loving  pressure  of  her 
fresh  young  lips.  Yes,  she  would  make  it  up  with  man- 
kind at  large,  even  with  her  own  relatives.  Chaotic  mem- 
ories of  people  she  had  scolded  jostled  in  her  brain.  Yes, 
she  could  forgive  them  all.  It  was  as  if  she  was  exchang- 
ing all  these  minor  enmities — the  small  change  of  social 
friction  for  a  lump  sum,  so  as  to  have  more  to  add  to  the 
hatred  she  felt  was  Broser's  due. 

Ay,  Alligator's  mother  herself — poor  Tom's  evil  genius 
should  be  finally  and  fully  forgiven — on  Broser's  account. 
Even  after  Minnie's  marriage  to  Jim,  the  Duchess  had 
refused  to  recognize  the  opposition  mother-in-law  as  any- 
thing but  an  intruder  into  the  sacred  pale.  Now  she 
would  write  to  invite  her  to  Rosmere. 

"  Yes,"  she  thought  in  an  overflow  of  generosity,  "  and 
we  will  attend  the  next  Drawing-room  together." 


CHAPTER  IX 
MARGARET    ENGELBORNE 

A  PEETTY  girl  in  a  spotless  cap  and  apron — shining 
•£^  seraph  of  earthly  ministry — opened  the  door,  and 
Allegra  stepped  into  a  strange  little  hall,  guarded  by  the 
Japanese  man  in  armor,  who,  however,  turned  out  to  be 
absent  from  his  lacquered  suit  and  crescent-topped  helmet. 
Perhaps  the  lively  little  fox-terrier  replaced  him  on  guard. 
"  Down,  Ned !"  said  the  maid,  and  in  an  instant  Allegra 
and  he  were  friends,  and  he  stayed  with  her,  while  the  maid 
took  in  her  name.  In  another  instant  she  found  herself 
being  welcomed  to  a  sort  of  boudoir-museum  by  a  tall  pale 
girl,  radiating  an  indefinable  aroma  of  spiritual  sweetness 
and  physical  suffering.  But  there  was  a  more  definite 
aroma  curiously  intermingled,  and  Allegra's  first  impres- 
sion of  Margaret  Engelborne  reminded  her  comically  of 
the  Duchess's  greeting  in  Rome :  "  Oh,  how  your  dress 
smells  of  smoke !" 

It  was  a  shimmering,  golden-brown  tea -gown,  at  odds 
with  the  odor,  for  which  perhaps  it  was  the  other 
occupant  of  the  room  who  was  responsible — the  girl  with 
the  soulful  face  and  the  wonderful  eyes,  who  lay  back  in 
an  easy-chair.  Her  Allegra  recognized.  She  could  be 
no  other  than  Miranda  Grey,  the  much  -  photographed 
actress,  whose  eyes  were  stars  of  divine  light  and  whose 
voice  trembled  with  the  music  of  the  spheres  and  the  tears 
of  the  pitying  angels.  When  this  glorious  creature  was 
actually  introduced  as  Miranda  Grey,  Allegra  wondered 
that  she  should  be  so  like  herself  off  the  stage  or  off  the 
photograph,  even  sitting  with  her  back  to  the  light.  This 

319 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

was  the  very  spirit  of  goodness,  who  had  glided,  a  vestal 
virgin  of  lustration,  through  a  recent  society  drama. 

It  was  impossible  even  to  talk  of  anything  else  while 
Miranda  was  in  the  room:  she  monopolized  the  conversa- 
tion both  as  speaker  and  as  subject.  Even  the  wife  of  a 
Cabinet  Minister  did  not  interest  her.  Allegra  could 
barely  edge  in  an  inquiry  as  to  the  sick  sister.  Her  own 
relegation  to  the  background — novel  in  itself,  and  accen- 
tuated by  her  subconscious  sense  of  patronage  and  phil- 
anthropy in  coming — took  her  aback  a  moment,  but  the 
little  shock  passed  instantly  into  amusement,  as  she  sur- 
rendered herself  to  the  situation,  and  waited  for  the 
revelation  of  her  hostess's  personality,  which  lay  under 
the  same  eclipse  as  her  own.  Miranda's  relations  with 
her  hair-dresser  occupied  much  time,  and  subsequently  it 
transpired  that  her  dairyman  had  conceived  a  passion 
for  her — as  pure  as  his  milk — and  in  consequence  brought 
her  the  best  of  everything  without  sending  in  a  bill. 
"  Cream — butter — cheese — eggs,  too !"  And  her  dazzling 
eyes  dilated  at  each  new  article,  till  at  "  eggs,  too," 
they  were  spheres  of  spiritual  light,  and  in  Allegra's 
vivid  imagination  little  winged  cherubim  seemed  to 
break  out  through  the  egg-shells.  Later  she  spoke  of 
potatoes  with  a  radiant  play  of  feature;  and  when  she 
said  the  weather  was  beastly  for  so  near  to  May,  she  had 
the  air  of  a  Joan  of  Arc. 

When  Margaret  Engelborne  demurred,  "  The  skies  are 
not  friendly,  but  neither  are  they  horrid — just  preoccu- 
pied— to  look  up  into  them  is  like  looking  into  eyes  one 
loves  and  finding  them  too  busy  to  smile,"  it  seemed 
natural  to  Allegra  that  even  the  weather  should  be  main- 
tained in  the  plane  into  which  Miranda  had  lifted  it.  It 
was  not  till  later  that  she  realized  that  the  poetry  belonged 
to  Margaret,  that  Margaret  saw  everything  through 
images  of  tenderness,  vivified  even  the  inanimate  creation 
with  child  -  heart  fancies.  It  was  not,  indeed,  easy 
to  realize  this  to-day,  seeing  that  when  Miranda,  in  a 

320 


MARGARET   ENGELBORNE 

moment  of  self-forgetfulness,  remarked  that  Ned  didn't 
seem  so  lively  as  usual,  Margaret  replied :  "  Poor  little 
Ned.  He  is  recovering  from  a  bad  bout  with  a  bigger 
dog.  The  other  dog's  master  by  way  of  parting  them 
picked  up  his  own  animal.  He  ought  to  have  known 
that  he  would  pick  up  Ned  too :  that  a  terrier  with  a  pedi- 
gree like  Ned's  would  never  let  go." 

"  Has  Ned  a  pedigree  ?"  murmured  Miranda  with  wan- 
ing interest. 

"  Haven't  you  noticed  it  hanging  up  in  the  hall  ?  Dear 
little  fellow  \  I'd  rather  have  him  die  than  let  go." 

The  contrast,  between  the  sweet  voice  and  the  savage 
sentiment  was  Allegra's  first  vivid  impression  of  the  real 
Margaret. 

The  talk  veered  round  to  Miranda's  work:  it  appeared 
that  she  had  become  an  actress-manageress  at  a  minor 
theatre,  and  was  speculating  in  Cross  and  Crown,  a  ro- 
mantic religious  drama.  But  it  was  not,  she  confessed  in 
divine  accents,  "  raking  in  the  shekels."  She  seemed  more 
interested  in  the  crowns  than  in  the  crosses :  indeed,  the  ab- 
sence of  crowns  seemed  to  constitute  her  cross.  She  had 
even  dropped  the  Saturday  matinee.  "  This  time  last 
Saturday  I  was  in  my  war  -  paint,  I  mean  my  grease- 
paint." She  feared  that  the  name  of  the  author  must  be 
leaking  out,  and  this  prevented  people  from  going.  Be- 
cause poor  Otto  Pont  had  been  in  prison,  he  was  never  to 
write  anything  any  more,  even  under  a  false  name.  What 
a  hypocritical  public!  Besides,  she  herself  had  revised 
the  play  a  good  deal,  and  cut  down  the  part  of  the  wicked 
pagan  woman  who  had  too  much,  to  say.  Now,  Virtue 
had  the  word  almost  the  whole  time,  and  what  did  the 
public  want  ? 

Otto  Pont !  So  the  irrepressible  Professor  was  still 
energizing,  albeit  darkly.  Poor  Otto!  She  wondered 
how  it  felt  to  be  ruined  materially:  whether  it  was  worse 
than  the  spiritual  foundering  she  had  herself  known.  She 
wondered,  too,  at  the  Bohemian — even  anti-Christian — 

321 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

atmosphere  of  a  home  she  had  imagined  Puritan,  espe- 
cially when  Miranda  absent-mindedly  relit  the  cigarette 
she  had  laid  aside  at  the  stranger's  advent.  But  her  faith 
in  Raphael  Dominick's  judgment  remained  strong,  and 
there  was  something  in  the  imperturbable  yet  sympathetic 
attention  of  Margaret  Engelborne  to  Miranda's  babblings 
that  reminded  Allegra  of  Raphael's  priestly  attitude  tow- 
ards her  own  confidences.  As  she  sipped  a  cup  of  tea 
she  studied  Margaret's  long,  oval  face  with  its  delicate 
features  and  spiritual  radiance,  the  chin  not  unlike  her 
own,  the  eyes  greenish,  the  hair  dark  and  short;  she 
studied  the  room  in  which  she  sat,  and  found  it  as  distin- 
guished and  original  as  its  mistress.  The  old  furniture, 
she  perceived,  had  never  passed  through  the  shops,  the 
china  had  lived  always  in  hereditary  homes.  There  was 
a  Chippendale  cabinet,  a  Chippendale  bookcase  gleaming 
with  classics  in  English,  French,  and  German,  and  a  long 
set  of  Notes  and  Queries.  There  was  a  piano  with  a  blue 
and  white  punch-bowl  upon  it.  A  Dresden  clock  ticked 
on  the  mantel-piece.  Daffodils  met  the  eye  everywhere 
in  beautiful  Italian  or  Worcester  vases.  But  mixed  with 
this  classic  and  cheerful  serenity  was  a  wealth  of  savage 
curios,  exhaling  grim  suggestions  of  battle  and  sudden 
death,  the  chase  and  the  torture-chamber;  not  merely  the 
properties  of  the  old  English  hall,  antlers,  and  guns,  and 
blunderbusses,  and  buffalo  horns,  but  big  bows  and  arrows, 
and  javelins,  and  boomerangs,  and  stone  cannon-balls,  and 
a  rhinoceros  horn,  and  strange-shaped  swords  in  unfamiliar 
scabbards,  and  uncouth,  unknown  instruments  and  weap- 
ons. And  underneath  this  dominating  note  of  violence 
a  later  impression  of  the  innocuous  grotesque  awaited 
her;  a  collection  ranging  from  Turkish  tombstones  to 
tiny  Hindoo  gods,  from  opium-pipes  to  Chinese  puzzles. 
She  feared  to  seem  impolite  by  asking  if  she  might  begin 
to  play,  though  she  had  barely  snatched  the  hour  from  the 
endless  social,  philanthropic,  and  domestic  duties  of  a 
great  London  hostess. 

322 


MARGARET   ENGELBORNE 

A  child  arrived  mysteriously — a  great-eyed  cherub — 
and  sprang  into  Margaret's  arms  with  a  cry  of  "  Muwer- 
Meg,"  and  soon  constituted  herself  the  prattling  point  of 
interest. 

"  My  muvver  says  she  dejected  five  men  before  she 
married  favver.  How  many  men  have  you  dejected, 
Muwer-Meg  ?" 

And  with  the  turning  of  the  laughter  and  the  applause 
from  herself,  Miranda,  no  longer  in  the  centre  of  the  stage, 
made  her  exit,  and  Allegra  had  the  little  girl  to  play  with 
and  the  little  dog  to  fawn  on  her  while  Margaret  escorted 
her  other  visitor  without. 

"  What  a  naughty  girl !"  And  the  child  pointed  to  a 
fantastic  vignette,  in  an  open  volume  of  poems,  of  a 
nymph  swinging  airily  from  a  bending  branch. 

"  How  do  you  know  she  is  naughty  ?"  inquired  Allegra, 
astonished. 

"  Look  how  she's  pulling  down  the  tree !" 

Allegra  laughed.  It  was  long  since  she  had  spoken 
with  a  child  on  terms  of  equality,  and  little  Chrissie's  ac- 
ceptance of  her  was  softening.  She  took  up  the  book, 
saw  it  was  among  her  own  favorites:  the  poems  of  the 
singer  whose  virility  had  ousted  Deldon's  shadowy 
allegories,  and  who  had  been  silent  too  long:  songs 
of  a  Christ-like  soul,  touched  witK  a  pagan  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  the  earth.  The  fly-leaf  bore  the  inscription: 
"  To  Margaret  Engelborne  from  Raphael  Dominick,"  and 
she  was  glad  he  had  picked  out  such  a  book  for  his  gift. 
It  seemed  a  sign  he  was  not  so  frozen  as  he  professed. 
But  then  the  inscription  was  some  years  old. 

"  Do  excuse  me,"  said  Margaret,  returning,  "  I  had 
something  to  ask  Miss  Grey." 

"  She  doesn't  seem  as  spiritual  as  I  had  imagined,"  Al- 
legra commented,  smiling.  But  Margaret  only  smiled 
back  vaguely  and  replied : 

"  It  is  so  good  of  Mr.  Dominick  to  find  us  a  new  friend. 
He  is  very  good  to  us." 

323 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Allegra  was  so  glad  of  this  additional  testimony  that  she 
said,  unthinkingly :  "  He  contradicts  his  theories,  then." 

But  whether  Margaret  was  aware  of  these  theories  or 
not,  she  replied :  "  Will  you  have  some  more  tea  ?"  so  that 
Allegra  had  again  the  sense  of  being  checked.  But  it  was 
only  after  several  visits  that  she  discovered  Margaret 
would  not  discuss  one  friend  with  another. 

"  No,  thank  you.     Shall  I  play  now  ?" 

"  I  am  afraid  I  must  not  expect  you  to  now.  Your 
time  is  precious,  and  I  could  not  ask  you  while  Miss  Grey 
was  here,  because  she  enjoyed  talking,  and  it  might  have 
seemed  rude  to  her." 

"  But  I  have  plenty  of  time !"  Allegra  protested  men- 
daciously. Although  amused  at  the  scrupulous  meander- 
ings  of  Miss  Engelborne's  unselfishness — which  had,  after 
all,  resulted  in  the  neglect  of  herself — she  was  attracted 
to  this  curious  household,  had  already  mentally  and  with 
scant  regret  thrown  over  the  private  view  of  some  R.  A.'s 
pictures.  The  carriage  could  wait.  "  Shall  I  go  in  to 
your  sister?" 

"  It  is  so  sweet  of  you,  Lady  Allegra,  but  I  fear  she 
will  never  be  strong  enough  to  see  you.  But  she  has  been 
expecting  you,  and  now  I  shall  tell  her  that  you  are  just 
as  we  dreamed  you  would  be !  She  will  be  so  happy !  If 
you  play  on  this  piano,  she  will  hear  you  quite  well  through 
the  wall — it  is  better  that  the  sound  comes  muffled." 

"  Then  I  had  better  play  something  soft,  too." 

"  Yes,  please.  But  may  I  go  in  a  second  and  see  if  she 
is  comfortable  ?" 

Margaret  returned  with  a  longer  face.  "  I  am  so  sor- 
ry: the  nurse  is  just  busy  with  her.  She  could  not  be 
ready  to  listen  for  ten  minutes.  But  she  told  me  to  thank 
you  with  all  her  heart,  and  you  will  come  again,  won't 
you?" 

"  Not  if  you  drive  me  away  like  that.  Surely  it  is  no 
bore  to  spend  ten  minutes  in  your  amateur  armory,  to  say 
nothing  of  your  company." 

324 


MARGARET   ENGELBORNE 

"  Oh,  would  you  like  to  look  at  some  of  the  things  ? 
People  so  rarely  do.  Sometimes,  I  wonder  if  they  even 
see  them." 

"  But  I  see  'em,"  said  Chrissie,  "  only  you  won't  let  me 
play  with  'em." 

"  They  bite,  Chrissie.     That's  why." 

"  But  they  wouldn't  bite  me.     Ned  doesn't." 

Margaret  snatched  up  the  child  and  hugged  her  fer- 
vidly. 

The  collection  had  been  made  by  her  father,  she  said, 
a  man  who  had  travelled  widely  and  had  enjoyed  every 
moment  of  his  life.  The  Oriental  weapons  were  newest  to 
Allegra :  the  Malay  kris,  with  its  blade  "  wriggled  at  the 
edges  so  as  to  make  terrible  wounds,"  as  Miss  Engelborne 
explained  imperturbably,  and  the  Japanese  "  Happy  De- 
spatch "  knife,  very  heavy-hefted  and  equipped  with  a  pen- 
knife and  a  pick;  Indian  swords  with  hilts  too  small  for 
English  hands;  the  Indian  sword  of  state  with  its  velvet 
sheath  bound  in  copper  and  its  supplementary  stiletto. 
Ghastliest  of  all  was  the  Chinese  executioner's  sword, 
wooden-handled,  which  Margaret  drew  from  its  leather 
scabbard,  recounting  how  it  had  executed  thirty  men  every 
day  for  thirteen  weeks.  "  So  beautifully  poised,  it  cuts 
clean,"  she  said. 

Allegra  felt  sick.  "  Where  could  they  find  so  many 
criminals  ?" 

"  They  don't  value  life  so  much  in  China,"  Margaret 
replied,  with  a  touch  of  scorn.  "  Many  of  those  executed 
were  not  even  the  actual  criminals,  but  paid  substitutes 
bent  on  enriching  their  families." 

"  Horrible !     But  it  redeems  the  savagery.     And  what 
are  those  curious  toasting-forks  ?" 
"  Chinese  prayer-prongs." 
"What!" 

"  They  are  stuck  in  the  shoulders,  but  so  as  to  dodge 
the  lungs.     Blobs  of  incense  are  burnt  on  the  prongs." 
"  But  is  that  a  way  of  praying  ?" 

325 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  A  form  of  penance.  It  doesn't  hurt  as  much  as  it 
appears.  The  shoulders  are  first  pounded  to  insensibility. 
But  here  is  a  penance  even  more  showy."  And  with  a 
faint  smile  Margaret  indicated  another  pair  of  prongs 
connected  by  a  horizontal  piece  of  wood,  and  described 
how  they  were  hung  up  and  stuck  into  the  thick  muscles 
of  the  back,  so  that  the  penitent  swung  from  them,  as  from 
a  milkman's  yoke,  his  feet  off  the  ground. 

Allegra  felt  the  prongs  in  her  shoulders  and  turned 
faint.  It  was  unfortunate  to  have  inherited  her  mother's 
vivid  physical  sympathy  as  well  as  her  father's  more  com- 
plex interest  in  the  human  tragedy,  and  she  was  still  as 
hypersensitive  as  on  the  night  of  the  burnt  moths.  "  Did 
they  think  that  would  please  their  god?"  she  said  con- 
temptuously. 

"  It  was  their  way  of  pleasing  the  god  within  them- 
selves. They  set  themselves  right  with  their  own  con- 
science." There  came  from  these  words  and  from  Mar- 
garet's expression  a  waft  of  vitality  which  dispelled  Al- 
legra's  faintness.  "  But  here  is  something  more  pacific," 
said  Margaret,  producing  a  notched  stick,  "  though  I  dare 
say  you  won't  know  what  it  is."  And  as  Allegra  failed  to 
guess,  she  told  her  it  was  a  tally — an  old  East  India  Com- 
pany receipt  for  seventeen  thousand  pounds. 

Allegra  laughed  at  her  own  ignorance.  "  I  remember 
reading  about  them.  A  lot  were  burned  in  the  fire  in  the 
old  House  of  Commons,  weren't  they?  But  after  that, 
perhaps  you'll  tell  me  these  sticks,"  she  touched  one, 
"  aren't  arrows." 

"  Don't !  Be  careful !"  Margaret  pulled  her  hand  back. 
"  They  are  poisoned." 

"Poisoned?" 

"  Yes.  Poisoned  Novabarbese  arrows.  My  father 
brought  them  back  before  the  Novabarbese  war  broke  out. 
They  have  been  superseded  now,  I  believe,  by  German 
cannon  except  among  the  more  backward  tribes." 

Allegra  contemplated  them  curiously,  remembering 

326 


MARGARET   ENGELBORNE 

how  poor  Tom  had  died  of  one  of  them.  "  But  surely, 
they  don't  retain  their  virulence  still  ?" 

"  Yes,  it's  a  vegetable  poison ;  a  vegetable  poison  on 
wood  doesn't  fade  with  age,  and  this  is  peculiarly  strong, 
a  Novabarbese  war-secret.  I  have  to  remove  them  with  my 
own  hand,  whenever  I  change  my  address.  I  dare  not  let 
the  men  touch  them.  The  tiniest  prick  would  be  fatal. 
They  are  not  all  poisoned,  but  unfortunately  I  have  mud- 
dled them  up,  and  forgotten  which  are  and  which  aren't." 

"  You  ought  to  destroy  them." 

"  Father  would  not  like  his  collection  impaired." 

"  Is  he  alive,  still  ?" 

"  Not  with  an  earth-life.  But  he  has  still  his  earth- 
interests,  of  course.  How  happy  he  will  be  at  your  kind- 
ness to  Kit !" 

Allegra  was  startled  and  impressed  by  Margaret's  calm 
assurance  in  the  great  matters  that  were  monthly  in  doubt 
in  the  half-crown  reviews.  "  But  he  would  not  have  been 
happy  if  I  had  pricked  myself,"  she  urged. 

"  It  would  have  been  with  a  harmless  arrow,"  Margaret 
affirmed. 

"  But  one  wouldn't  know  at  first  whether  it  was  death 
or  a  pin-prick !" 

"  No — it's  like  the  stock  joke  about  how  to  tell  a  mush- 
room," said  Margaret,  coolly.  "  Eat  it.  If  you  die,  it's 
a  toadstool." 

"  But  how  long  would  it  take  to  know  ?" 

"  About  five  minutes,  father  told  me.  First,  there  is 
just  a  little  swelling  as  at  an  ordinary  prick.  The  agony 
commences  only  when  the  poison  has  got  well  into  the 
blood,  but  then  the  end  comes  quickly." 

"  How  dreadful !  What  a  curious  position — to  be  wait- 
ing to  know !" 

"  I  have  been  in  that  position." 

"  You  pricked  yourself  ?" 

"  No,  but  once  a  half-wild  Chinese  bitch  father  had 
brought  home  flew  at  his  throat,  and  she  bit  my  hand  as 

327 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

I  was  tearing  her  away.     I  had  to  wait  to  know  whether 
hydrophobia  would  set  in." 

"  That  must  have  been  a  terrible  time !" 

"  Not  so  terrible.  Does  it  matter  so  much  when  we  go 
to  God  ?  But  only  this  mark  remained."  She  showed 
it — a  great  scar.  "  The  worst  was,  it  spoilt  my  play- 
ing." 

"  I  thought  that  was  due  to  the  dislocation  of  your 
shoulder.  So  Mr.  Dominick  said." 

"  That,  too.  I  was  dancing  about  on  the  top  of  the  stairs 
because  it  was  my  birthday,  and  father  who  was  standing 
at  the  foot  had  just  given  me  a  new  coat.  But  suddenly 
I  swayed  and  caught  at  the  banister,  and  I  can  still  see  his 
white  face  swimming  up  towards  me.  Poor  father!" 
She  turned  away.  "  These  are  the  original  stone  cannon- 
balls  that  were  fired  red-hot  from  the  British  batteries 
during  the  siege  of  Gibraltar." 

"  Your  father  seems  to  have  collected  all  the  cruelest 
things,"  Allegra  said,  unsympathetically. 

"  We  are  a  race  of  soldiers,"  Margaret  replied  simply. 

Allegra's  vestiges  of  sympathy  dwindled.  She  wished  to 
change  the  subject.  She  saw  some  framed  letters.  "  Ah, 
you  collect  autographs,  too." 

Margaret's  eyes  kindled.  "  You  don't  often  see  Ten- 
nyson's. Look  there!  I  got  his  when  I  was  a  school- 
girl in  France  by  pretending  I  was  a  little  French  girl. 
I  wrote  as  Henriette  la  Comblee,  and  that  quite  bowled 
him  over.  Victor  Hugo's  I  got  by  writing  as  a  little 
English  girl."  She  laughed;  Allegra  laughed,  too,  re- 
lieved to  find  Kaphael  Dominick's  "  only  Christian  "  not 
priggishly  conscientious. 

"  You  have  Deldon's,  too,"  she  said. 

"  Yes — but  I  have  outgrown  my  interest  in  him.  His 
politics  I  always  hated,  and  now  his  verses  are  not  even 
musical.  Your  friend's  my  favorite  poet  among  the  mod- 
erns." 

"  Who  is  my  friend  ?"     Allegra  was  puzzled. 

328 


MARGARET   ENGELBORNE 

"  Raphael  Dominick.  I  am  so  proud  of  having  a  copy 
from  the  author."  She  pointed  to  the  volume,  still  open  at 
the  vignette  of  the  naughty  nymph  pulling  down  the  tree. 

"Is  that  Us?" 

This  time  Margaret  was  puzzled.     "  Didn't  you  know  ?" 

"  I  love  the  poems.  But  he  never  told  me  they  were 
his." 

Margaret  flushed,  as  if  she  had  been  guilty  of  boasting 
a  superior  intimacy.  "  Perhaps  he  took  it  for  granted 
you  knew,"  she  suggested.  "  I  think  he  did  not  like  to 
put  his  real  name  to  them  because  he  was  so  well  known 
among  pressmen  as  a  brother,  and  so  he  was  afraid  he 
would  be  log-rolled." 

"  That  is  so  like  him,"  said  Allegra,  with  glistening  eyes. 

"  Kit  loves  his  poems  so.  She  prays  to  God  every  night 
that  he  may  be  inspired  to  write  more.  I  so  hope  he  will 
publish  another  volume  before  she  dies." 

Allegra  felt  embarrassed.  "  I  am  glad  anyhow  that  he 
has  achieved  his  early  poetical  promise,"  she  said. 

"  Ah,  then  you  did  know  ?" 

Allegra  smiled :  "  Well,  it's  a  little  roundabout  to  ex- 
plain." 

"  He  has  been  very  kind  to  my  poor  promise,"  said 
Margaret. 

Allegra  was  astonished  to  hear  that  Margaret  wrote,  too. 
She  asked  craftily,  "  .And  what  is  your  pen-name  ?" 

Margaret  laughed.  "  What  a  delightful  way  of  con- 
fessing you  have  never  heard  of  me.  I  use  my  own  name. 
But  I  belong  to  the  etceteras  of  literary  gatherings:  just 
an  obscure  work-woman,  to  whom  Mr.  Dominick  and  a  few 
other  editors,  God  bless  them,  have  been  kinder  than  she 
deserved.  How  I  should  rush  to  give  anybody  my  auto- 
graph! Apropos,  I  mustn't  forget  to  show  you  Bis- 
marck's." She  pointed  to  it  with  pride. 

"  At  that  rate  she  is  capable  of  admiring  Broser," 
thought  Allegra,  slightly  chilled  again.  "  Your  sister 
will  be  ready  now,"  she  said. 

329 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

"  Of  course :  how  selfish  I  am,  to  be  chattering  about 
myself!"  She  ran  out,  and  returned  to  say  that  Kit 
sent  a  thousand  thanks  and  was  full  of  happy  anticipa- 
tion. 

Allegra  sat  down  to  the  piano  and  found  herself  play- 
ing the  "  Allemande  "  of  Paradies.  She  smiled  through 
tears  when  she  made  the  discovery. 

"  But  it  is  only  proper,"  she  told  herself.  "  He  sent 
me  here."  And  she  passed  on  defiantly  to  the  "  Melan- 
cholic "  of  John  Field,  conscious  at  moments  of  the  pen- 
sive smiling  Margaret  and  the  rapt  little  Chrissie,  and  the 
visioned  Kit  upon  her  bed  of  pain,  and  at  others  only  of 
the  sadder  figure  in  the  arm-chair  at  Orvieto,  and  the  roar 
of  the  flame  and  the  voices  of  the  centuries. 

She  had  expected  to  come  to  a  lazar-house.  But  she 
drove  away  with  a  sense — beyond  and  above  all  the  quaint 
contradictions — of  daffodils  and  music,  of  life  and  love, 
and  little  children,  of  sweet  dignity,  and  noble  endurance. 

She  had  come  to  help,  but  it  was  she  who  had  been 
helped. 


CHAPTER  X 
CHRISTIAN     MARTYRS 

playing  to  the  unseen  Katharine  Engelborne, 
-A.  for  which  the  sick  girl  sent  pretty  messages  of 
thanks,  soon  became  the  pleasantest  part  of  Allegra's 
whirling  life,  and  she  looked  forward  to  Ned's  welcoming 
bark  and  the  snatched  boot  or  other  object  with  which 
he  ran  to  meet  his  favorites  (though  it  was  not  etiquette 
to  accept  anything  at  his  mouth).  She  knew  that  one  day 
Raphael  Dominick  would  turn  up  in  the  quaint  sitting- 
room,  but  that  was  not  the  centripetal  force  exerted  by  it. 
Margaret's  sympathy  was  so  penetrating  that  but  for  hav- 
ing already  opened  her  soul  to  Raphael  Dominick,  and  for 
her  intuitive  distrust  of  Margaret's  intellectual  stand- 
point, Allegra  could  scarcely  have  resisted  seeking  relief 
from  this  mother-confessor,  to  whom  babes  and  the  world- 
worn  brought  their  sorrows.  She  shrank,  moreover,  from 
adding  to  Margaret's  manifold  burdens,  inasmuch  as  she 
soon  discovered  that  Margaret's  was  not  a  passive  sym- 
pathy, but  a  soul-racking,  body-wasting  effort  to  amend 
the  evil.  And  thus  it  came  about  that  Allegra  got  to 
know  more  of  Margaret  than  Margaret  of  Allegra.  Kath- 
arine she  did  not  see — perhaps  she  could  scarcely  have 
endured  the  sight — but  she  early  learnt  her  sad  history. 

"  The  pity  is,"  said  Margaret,  "  that  it  was  not  I  to 
whom  this  happened.  Kit  was  always  the  pretty,  merry, 
dancing  one,  fond  of  riding  and  skating  and  rowing,  the 
inheritor  of  father's  strength  and  joy  of  life,  while  I  was 
the  ugly  duckling,  the  sickly  one  with  the  weak  lung,  who 
at  dances  had  to  rest  for  half  a  dozen  waltzes  on  the  dress- 

331 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

ing-room  sofa.  It  was  there  I  read  Sartor  Resartus,"  she 
interpolated  with  a  smile.  "  She  was  the  one  who  was 
to  marry — we  had  arranged  it  all.  And  she  used  to  be 
the  lucky  one,  too,  while  I  was  always  tumbling  down 
stairs  or  falling  out  of  hansoms,  and  even  when  we  were 
thrown  out  of  a  dog-cart  together  she  was  unhurt,  while  I 
was  laid  up  for  weeks  with  my  spine." 

Allegra  saw  as  clearly  as  possible  that  as  they  fell  Mar- 
garet had  caught  Kit  in  such  a  way  that  it  should  be  her 
own  back  which  was  broken.  But  she  replied,  "  And 
then  that  dog-bite — you  are  indeed  unfortunate." 

"  But  Kit,  thank  God,  was  always  fortunate  till  one 
day,  as  she  stretched  out  her  hand  to  take  something  which 
was  teasingly  withdrawn,  she  discovered  that  she  could 
not  extend  the  forearm.  From  that  time  her  limbs  began 
to  be  paralyzed.  Technically,  it  was  a  wasting  away  of 
the  gristle.  She  has  been  ill  some  nine  years  now,  get- 
ting worse  and  worse.  For  some  years  she  was  able  to 
hobble  about  on  sticks;  for  the  last  four  she  has  been  in 
bed,  in  that  darkened  room." 

"  Not  suffering,  I  hope." 

"  Physically  she  suffers  horribly.  If  I  could  only  bear 
it  for  her,  my  poor  darling!  But  spiritually  she  is  the 
happiest  of  creatures." 

"  She  looks  forward  to  death  . 

"  In  God's  good  time.  But  meanwhile  her  interest  is 
in  life.  She  has  not  lost  one  of  her  old  interests — every 
thread  is  drawn  to  her  bedside.  According  to  the  doctors 
she  ought  to  have  died  years  ago,  and  if  she  had  listened 
to  them,  she  would  have  clouded  her  brain  with  opiates." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  she  will  not  relieve  her  pain  ?" 

"  Did  our  Lord  drink  from  the  hyssop  ?" 

Allegra  was  shaken  to  her  depths.  "  But  since  she  can- 
not live  much  longer,  why  should  she  suffer  ?" 

"  While  God  grants  us  intellect,  we  have  not  the  right 
to  bemuse  it  with  drugs."  Allegra  amid  all  her  emotion 
noted  with  her  old  pleasure  the  infrequent  literary  word. 

332 


CHRISTIAN   MARTYRS 

"  Kit  has  saved  all  that  is  best  in  her,  and  has  thereby  a 
good  influence  over  certain  poor  strayed  women  who  care 
for  what  is  said  from  a  death-bed.  God  must  have  told 
her  she  should  live  far  longer  than  the  doctors  said,  and 
that  gave  her  strength  to  keep  her  brain  clear.  Perhaps 
she  remembered  what  they  said  about  me  years  before — 
that  T  was  about  to  go  blind.  But  I  did  so  much  writing 
for  father  that  I  prayed  God  he  might  not  be  deprived  of 
my  help,  and  lo !  I  have  lived  to  see  you" 

She  spoke  with  the  simple  illumination  of  the  mystic, 
but  of  a  mystic  unaware  that  all  Christians  are  not  thus. 
Orvieto  should  have  been  her  cradle  rather  than  this  pal- 
pitating London,  Allegra  thought.  She  enabled  one  to 
understand  the  Middle  Ages.  But  London  or  Orvieto, 
Margaret  lived  in  neither,  she  felt:  she  made  her  own 
atmosphere.  Round  about  her  was  the  spiritual  world, 
interfluent  with  the  material,  a  world  whose  dynamics 
were  as  sure,  whose  laws  of  equivalence  and  conservation 
as  certain,  so  that  when  she  wrestled  in  agonized  prayer 
on  behalf  of  others,  it  was  not  of  no  avail.  And  at  the 
heart  of  this  world  was  the  Christ,  still  crucified  by  the 
world's  sin,  and  sending  His  wonderful  smile  of  love 
to  cheer  the  sorrowful  and  aspiring.  No  lip-religion  this, 
but  life's  central  reality,  as  clear  as  the  sky,  as  real  as  the 
earth.  To  Allegra,  moving  amid  the  chatter  of  the  Lon- 
don world  and  the  services  in  fashionable  churches,  such 
a  faith  in  what  everybody  was  supposed  to  believe  was 
astounding.  She  found  in  it  some  of  her  girlish  self: 
her  own  intense  realization  of  things  spiritual.  It  was 
only  as  a  channel  for  the  divine  that  "  the  Poet  "  had  had 
for  her  his  halo  and  aura. 

"Poor  Kit!  If  only  it  could  have  been  I!"  This 
was  Margaret's  constant  thought.  In  a  moment  of  ex- 
pansion, when  they  were  exchanging  childish  reminis- 
cences, and  Allegra  had  confessed  how  she  had  always  odd- 
ly imagined  that  the  text  "  he  shall  raise  up  seed  to  his 
brother,"  meant  pomegranate  seed,  Margaret  confessed 

333 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

to  an  even  quainter  interpretation  of  a  text  in  Revelation. 
The  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand  who  were  mention- 
ed as  to  be  saved,  she  had  reasoned,  must  at  this  stage  of 
chronology  be  almost  complete.  Those  born  late  in  the 
world's  history  had  but  a  poor  chance  of  heaven.  Where- 
fore of  two  sisters,  one  at  most  could  get  in.  "  Take 
Kit  in,  please,"  she  had  used  to  pray.  "  She  is  so  much 
littler  than  I.  And  I  don't  really  mind  hell  so  much." 

But  she  was  really  transferring  Kit's  earthly  hell  to  her- 
self, for  gradually  Allegra  discovered  that  Margaret  went 
to  her  sister  every  now  and  then  if  only  to  turn  her, 
she  having  no  power  to  move,  and  growing  tired 
of  each  successive  position.  This  task  was  merely 
interruptive  by  day,  but  at  night  it  meant  that  Margaret 
lay  watchful  at  her  side,  sleeping  only  by  snatches,  while 
through  her  feverish  slumbers  ran  the  thought  of  Kit,  as 
the  Parisian  concierge  is  haunted  by  the  anticipation  of  the 
door-bell.  Her  reward  was  that,  though  four  years  in  bed, 
Kit  had  never  a  bed-sore — it  was  unprecedented,  said  the 
doctors,  marvelling.  But  Margaret  grew  daily  more  wan 
and  hollow-eyed:  often  she  fainted.  Her  literary  work 
was  done  by  ten  minutes  at  the  stretch,  and  yet — Allegra 
found — bore  scant  signs  of  the  conditions  of  its  genesis. 
There  were  a  couple  of  charming  children's  books,  over- 
flowing with  fun  and  tenderness,  products  natural  enough 
in  a  child-lover  whose  pride  was  to  possess  twenty-seven 
pet  names,  and  whose  pleasure  at  being  spontaneously 
rediscovered  as  "  Mother  Meg  "  by  a  new  mite  was  greater 
than  her  pleasure  at  a  favorable  review.  More  surpris- 
ing to  Allegra  were  the  stories  of  adults,  the  grim  strength 
of  which  Allegra  might  trace  to  the  influence  of  the  do- 
mestic armory,  but  whose  shrewd  cynicism  was  a  revela- 
tion of  the  value  of  personal  goodness  as  a  search-light 
on  the  shoddy  in  character.  No  mawkish  sentimentality, 
but  a  stern  probing  of  soul-depths.  Situations,  too,  start- 
lingly  unconventional  for  a  maiden  authoress,  yet  treated 
always  for  their  spiritual  drama.  Margaret  must  find  her 

334 


CHKISTIAN   MARTYRS 

material  to  hand,  Allegra  decided,  so  many  diverse  char- 
acters did  she  herself  encounter  in  this  wonderful  flat. 

Babies  were  perhaps  in  the  ascendant.  Nurses  brought 
them  on  visits,  or  Margaret  foraged  for  them  in  adjoining 
flats.  They  were  always  laughing  and  crowing:  no  cry- 
ing baby  could  resist  Mother  Meg.  Women  on  the  streets 
passed  through  the  hall  on  their  way  to  Kit — "  Kit's  spe- 
cial friends — women  who  have  missed  God's  sunshine," 
Margaret  called  them.  It  was  strange  she  should  receive 
these,  yet  lack  strength  to  see  Allegra,  even  once.  But 
it  was  right  to  nurse  her  strength  for  the  useful  occasions, 
Allegra  agreed,  while  suspecting  Kit  wished  to  spare  her 
the  pain  of  the  sordid  reality,  and  to  meet  her  only  in  the 
world  of  music.  It  was  a  poetical  relation. 

The  flat  proved  likewise  a  rendezvous  for  lovers,  sep- 
arated by  parents  and  guardians,  but  united  by  the  as- 
tonishing Margaret :  the  man  strolled  in  casually  and  was 
delighted  to  find  the  woman  accidentally  at  hand.  Mar- 
garet conducted  these  plots  to  a  happy  issue,  more  conven- 
tional in  her  realistic  novel-making  than  in  her  literary 
stories.  Sometimes  two  pairs  of  lovers  turned  up  at  the 
same  time,  and  Margaret  had  to  drive  a  four-in-hand, 
but  she  tried  if  possible  to  keep  them  in  separate  couples, 
and  this  involved  much  humorous  management  of  en- 
trances and  exits,  as  of  a  dramatist  hampered  by  a  sub- 
plot. Nor  was  Miranda  Grey  the  only  actress  who 
adorned  the  boards  of  Margaret's  variety  theatre.  An 
equally  winsome  but  less  self-centred  favorite  of  the  foot- 
lights came  to  be  heard  her  part  and  even  coached.  But 
perhaps  it  was  the  ladies  out  of  engagement  who  found 
most  consolation  there.  In  startling  contrast  with  these 
fluttering  feathered  creatures,  wimpled  sisters  of  Naz- 
areth might  be  found  sitting  at  meals,  for  only  Margaret 
remembered  that  on  their  long  begging-days  nuns  do  not 
buy  food,  and  they  in  turn  refrained  gratefully  from 
trying  to  undermine  the  Protestant  heresy,  which  loyalty 
to  her  traditions  would  alone  have  sufficed  to  render  un- 

335 


THE  MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

shakable.  Novelists,  too,  would  bask  in  Margaret's  spirit- 
ual radiance,  and  smoke  cigarettes  with  her — the  inmost 
circle  of  Margaret's  friendship  was  ringed  with  cigarette 
smoke — and  she  had  paradoxical  relations  with  advanced 
women-novelists,  whose  work  she  refused  to  read  lest  that 
should  imperil  the  friendship.  People  in  distress  came 
for  condolence,  and  happy  people  for  congratulation :  men 
to  talk  about  the  women  they  loved,  and  women  about  the 
women  they  hated,  or  the  children  that  had  been  taken 
from  them  by  an  unjust  divorce  law.  The  undergraduate 
whom  Margaret  was  educating  at  Cambridge  would  run 
down  in  the  vacation,  and  the  "  French  boy  "  would  come 
for  his  lesson.  A  few  people  turned  up  drunk  and  had  to 
be  isolated  like  fever  cases,  and  some  even  of  the  sober 
had  to  be  kept  from  contact  with  their  antipathies.  Strong 
Anglicans  would  not  meet  Jesuit  fathers,  and  respectable 
matrons  drew  the  line  at  divorcees,  so  that  sometimes 
the  variety  theatre  was  given  over  to  farcical  comedies, 
with  contrary  people  hidden  away  behind  doors  and 
screens;  dining-room  was  divided  against  sitting-room, 
and  sitting-room  against  spare  bedroom.  There  was  one 
occasion  on  which  Margaret  admitted  that  had  a  new 
visitor  turned  up,  there  would  have  been  no  accommoda- 
tion but  the  bath-room.  For  besides  the  people  who  came 
to  be  helped,  there  were  not  wanting  friends  who  came, 
like  Allegra,  out  of  love  and  admiration.  A  famous  poet- 
ess, admitted  to  the  bedside  as  an  old  friend,  would  read 
to  Kit  by  the  hour,  and  more  than  one  chivalrous  young 
Englishman  with  a  heart  and  a  brain  would  hover  about 
Margaret  anxious  to  do  her  fealty  and  service.  And 
amid  all  this  coming  and  going,  and  under  all  the  burden 
of  Kit,  she  would  write  her  stories  and  sell  them  very  dis- 
advantageously,  and  find  time  to  visit  the  bedridden  and 
the  dying,  and  dine  with  friends,  and  see  the  new  pieces  at 
the  theatres,  and  read  all  the  best  books.  With  her  eyes 
failing,  and  her  body  aching,  often  keeping  herself  by  sheer 
will-power  from  fainting,  her  sleep  at  night  averaging  two 

336 


CHRISTIAN   MARTYRS 

hours,  she  moved,  gracious  and  sunny,  among  her  friends 
and  dependants,  her  only  anxieties  lest  Kit  should  see 
through  her,  or  friends  worry  over  her,  or  lest  she  should 
forget  some  little  thing  or  other  that  would  please  them 
— gifts  to  mark  birthdays,  or  anniversary  flowers  on  tombs. 

Her  heart  full  of  childish  joy  and  childlike  faith,  she 
lived  in  unbroken  communion  with  the  Christ  who  in- 
spired her,  and  whose  sorrow  at  the  world's  impurity  she 
strove  to  diminish,  praying  that  God  might  turn  from 
their  evil  ways  the  sinners  whom  she  could  not  persuade 
to  abandon  their  darling  sin.  There  was  nothing  she  did 
not  pray  for,  except  her  own  personal  well-being.  And 
with  these  prayers  were  nightly  mingled  thanks  for  the 
blessings  of  the  day.  The  sisters  prayed  together,  and  felt 
their  dead  father  and  their  scarce-known  mother  were 
praying  with  them.  The  beads  they  counted  were  each 
separate  pleasure  the  day  had  brought — the  kindness  of 
visitors,  the  acceptance  of  Margaret's  last  story,  the  suc- 
cess of  an  actress-friend,  the  beauty  of  offered  flowers, 
the  charm  of  a  new  book,  the  sun  that  had  shone  for  others, 
some  good  item  of  national  news,  and  if  there  was  nothing 
else,  there  were  always  the  happy  memories  of  childhood 
to  say  grace  for. 

"  Truly  a  literal  martyrdom,  a  divine  witnessing," 
thought  Allegra.  The  little  flat — with  the  unseen  figure 
of  Kit  stretched  on  the  rack — seemed  to  her  a  point  of  light 
in  this  great,  sordid,  roaring,  reckless  London.  And  she 
grew  ashamed  of  herself  and  angry  with  Raphael  Domi- 
nick. 

What  wonder  Margaret  Engelborne  spoke  calmly  of 
tortures  and  wars!  She  had  the  right  to  conceive  the 
universe  as  a  place  of  fire  and  tears,  no  rose-bower  for  the 
languorous.  She  had  the  right  to  treat  as  universally 
exigent  the  stern  law  by  which  she  lived.  And  so  Allegra 
came  to  view  even  the  Chinese  penitential  instruments 
with  a  more  tolerant  eye:  to  feel  that  this  torture  of  the 
flesh  sprang  out  of  intense  living,  out  of  the  sense  of 

337 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

a  strong  and  valid  reality,  of  a  divine  importance 
in  things.  Such  pain  was  well  repaid  by  the  glori- 
ous assurance  of  a  significant  universe;  devoid  of 
which  the  modern  man,  heir  of  the  lore  and  beauty  of 
the  ages,  with  creation's  forces  under  his  thumb,  obedient 
to  electric  buttons,  was  poorer  than  the  lowest  Novabarbese 
fanatic  dashing  himself  on  the  British  cannon  in  the  un- 
perturbed certainty  of  a  prepared  Paradise.  That  noth- 
ing matters — this  was  the  one,  the  only  atheism,  as  it  was 
the  only  pessimism.  The  pleasure  of  childhood  was  that 
the  pains  were  real.  Yes,  Raphael  Dominick  was  right. 
Hell  was  essentially  the  flame  of  conviction  that  things 
mattered  terribly.  That  was  the  true  significance  of 
Dante,  though  his  material  hell  was  as  blurred  now  as 
Michael  Angelo's  fresco  in  the  Sistine  Chapel.  The  nat- 
ure of  things  was  strenuous,  was  worth  while.  Even  an 
age  of  persecution  was  better  than  an  age  of  persiflage. 
Both  sides  at  least  were  in  earnest,  the  persecuting  and  the 
persecuted. 


CHAPTER  XI 
FEUDALISM    AGAIN 

MARGARET'S  keen  interest  in  the  pomp  and  pride 
of  life,  her  love  of  color  and  beauty,  was  perhaps 
the  most  unexpected  trait  of  her  complex  temperament. 
She  was  better  posted  in  the  fashionable  round  than  Alle- 
gra  herself,  and  on  the  days  of  the  meet  of  coaches  in  Hyde 
Park  her  fancy  always  heard  the  horns.  The  general 
tricking  out  of  grooms  with  cockades  excited  her  disgust. 
"  Cockades  should  only  be  worn  by  the  grooms  of  Army 
and  Navy  people,  or  of  people  in  the  Queen's  direct  em- 
ploy." 

"  But  what  does  it  matter  ?"  asked  Allegra. 

"  I  hate  a  meaningless  symbol.  I  am  so  glad  they  are 
prosecuting  the  tradesmen  who  put  up  the  Queen's  arms. 
I  wish  they  were  stricter  as  regards  the  crest  on  silver." 

The  more  Allegra  saw  of  this  side  of  Margaret's  charac- 
ter, the  more  she  came  to  perceive  that  Margaret  Engel- 
borne  had  the  feudal  sense  even  more  strongly  than  her 
aunt,  the  Duchess,  and  in  the  more  aristocratic  form  of 
reticence. 

"  It  may  be  good  enough  for  her,  but  it  isn't  good  enough 
for  me,"  Margaret  had  once  said  of  a  wall-paper,  but  this 
was  probably  pride  of  taste.  It  was  only  by  accident  that 
Allegra  discovered  her  pride  of  birth. 

One  day,  sitting  in  an  unaccustomed  chair,  she  raised 
her  eyes  and  saw  a  painting  of  a  house  on  a  cliff. 

"  Why,  that's  like  my  sister's  place  in  Devonshire," 
she  cried. 

339 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Yes,  The  Manor  House,  now  in  possession  of  Mr. 
Fitzwinter,  belonged  to  us  once." 

"  How  strange !  I  suppose  you  still  think  of  it  as 
yours." 

"  Only  because  I  was  born  in  Devonshire.  We  lost  it 
altogether  in  George  I." 

"  Oh,  are  you  a  Devonian  ?" 

Margaret  smiled  sadly.  "  There  is  an  old  dying  Devon- 
shire woman  I  go  to  see  now,  poor  thing,  because  she  feels 
lonely  among  '  the  foreigners,'  as  she  calls  people  of  every 
other  county,  and  she  thinks  my  Devon  voice  helps  her. 
I  have  never  faced  death  before  in  which  the  Christ  has 
borne  no  part,  and  it  is  horribly  painful.  But  I  ought  not 
to  have  saddened  you  with  my  troubles — forgive  me.  Let 
us  think  of  the  Devon  grass — that  wonderful  emerald- 
green  which  makes  the  best  carpet  for  sunshine — and  the 
Devon  earth — the  rich  glowing  red,  in  lieu  of  the  sullen 
browns  and  grays  of  other  counties.  It  looks  as  if  it  were 
dyed  deep  with  the  heart-blood  of  its  brave  sons.  And  in- 
deed Devon  has  furnished  a  longer  roll  of  soldiers  and 
sailors  than  any  of  the  '  English  '  counties." 

"  Don't  talk  of  blood — with  the  Novabarbese  war  on  the 
horizon." 

"  Why  not  ?  Devon  is  eager  to  follow  your  husband's 
clarion-call.  I  know  it  offends  your  own  modesty  to  hear 
him  praised,  because  you  feel  so  at  one  with  him,  but  I 
feel  I  must  tell  you  how  I  admire  you  both  for  breaking 
away  from  your  father's  Little-Englander  ideals.  It  must 
have  been  a  pain  to  all  of  you,  I  know,  but  perhaps  even 
he  may  learn  to  see  that  nothing  counts  but  England's 
honor." 

Allegra,  outraged,  felt  it  was  so  hopeless  to  answer  this, 
that  she  said :  "  You  must  go  down  and  stay  in  the  home 
of  your  ancestors.  Joan  will  be  delighted." 

"  If  I  could  !     But  you  know  it  is  impossible." 

"  Ah,  I  was  forgetful — Mr.  Fitzwinter's  opinions." 

"  Oh,  nobody  minds  them,"  said  Margaret,  airily. 
"  And  I  would  forgive  him  anything  for  his  wife's  sake. 

340* 


I  don't  sit  on  committees — I  can't  work  that  way — but 
I  appreciate  those  who  can.  I  cannot  leave  Kit,  though 
she  would  love  me  to  go.  She  will  be  so  enchanted  to 
know  you  suggested  it.  It  would  have  been  poetic  justice, 
too,  for  Joan  was  the  name  of  the  heiress  whose  marriage 
to  Sir  Nicholas  Engelborne  took  us  away  from  Devonshire 
to  Kent  for  four  hundred  years." 

"  Joan  will  be  interested  to  hear  that.  Sir  Nicholas 
Engelborne — where  have  I  heard  that  name?" 

"  Perhaps  you  remember  he  was  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
or  you  have  read  in  Stow  how,  clad  in  red,  with  his  horse 
caparisoned  in  red,  he  received  Henry  V.  at  Temple  Bar 
when  he  came  back  from  Agincourt.  I  have  a  picture  of 
him." 

"  I  should  so  like  to  see  it." 

"  Would  you  really  ?"  Margaret  hesitated,  and  then 
timidly  produced  a  book  looking  like  an  album,  but  which 
she  handled  with  all  the  reverence  due  to  a  Bible.  "  Most 
people  are  bored  by  genealogy,  even  more  than  by  curios," 
she  said.  As  Margaret  shyly  turned  the  leaves  with  her 
long  artistic  fingers,  Allegra  saw  that  it  was  devoted  to 
the  Engelborne  family,  and  began  with  a  beautifully  col- 
ored series  of  family  'scutcheons  for  over  eight  hundred 
years. 

"  Here  you  see  the  'scutcheon  hanging  in  the  hall,"  said 
Margaret,  pointing  to  it. 

"  Is  there  an  escutcheon  in  the  hall  ?" 

"  Yes — near  the  pedigree  of  Ned." 

"  How  funny !  I  never  noticed  either.  But  I  shouldn't 
have  understood  them  if  I  had." 

Ax  this  Margaret's  eyes  showed  swift  suppressed  won- 
der. "  The  shield  is  argent,  you  see,"  she  explained,  "  a 
saltire  engrailed  betwixt  four  mullets  sable." 

"  Why,  the  crest  is  a  devil's  head !" 

'•'  Yes." 

Allegra  laughed  the  heartiest  adult  laugh  the  flat  had 
known  for  months.  "  How  delicious !  Your  crest,  a 
devil's  head.  Yours !" 

341 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Here  is  the  first  mention  of  us  in  the  Domesday  Book," 
said  Margaret,  laughing  too. 

"  In  the  Domesday  Book !"  Allegra  was  more  and  more 
astonished.  "  No  wonder  you  have  the  pride  of  the  devil. 
You  are  much  older  than  the  Marjorimonts." 

"  But  not  so  eminent  to-day,"  said  Margaret  soothingly. 
"  Even  our  title,  being  a  close  one,  died  out  in  George  I., 
because  there  was  no  '  heir  of  the  body,  legally  begot ' ; 
and  I  am  perhaps  the  only  Engelborne  who  cares  for  all 
the  great  past,  or  who  makes  a  pilgrimage  to  our  tombs 
and  monuments.  I  am  certain  I  am  the  only  one  who 
has  pored  over  the  will  of  Henry  VIII.  because  an  Engel- 
borne was  one  of  the  executors,  or  burrowed  among  the 
Archives  of  Venice  to  trace  the  activities  of  Sir  Henry 
Engelborne." 

"  Sir  Henry  Engelborne !  Why  did  I  never  connect 
you  with  him  ?  Ah,  that  is  where  you  get  your  literary 
talent  from.  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  an  anthology  with- 
out that  lyric  of  his.  And  I  remember  being  struck  by  his 
portrait  at  Oxford.  The  high  square  brow,  the  long 
straight  nose,  more  like  a  soldier  than  a  student,  I 
thought." 

"  I  told  you  we  were  a  fighting  race,"  said  Margaret, 
highly  gratified.  "  He  won  his  spurs  himself,  for  he  was 
the  youngest  son,  though  his  father  was  Lord  Eugelborne, 
and  his  mouth  always  makes  me  think  of  the  old  Eliza- 
bethan expression  '  my  dearest  dread.'  But  he  was  a 
scholar,  too,  as  you  know,  this  amorous  poet,  and  the  Pro- 
vost of  Eton  College,  as  well  as  eleven  times  ambassador 
here  or  there.  There  is  an  amusing  story  about  his  father, 
by-the-way.  He  made  a  vow  never  to  marry  a  relative  or 
a  widow,  or  anybody  mixed  up  with  law,  and  while  hang- 
ing about  Westminster  Law  Court  on  business  of  his  own 
and  losing  large  sums  thereby,  he  met  a  pretty  widow  who 
had  similar  grievances  against  the  lawyers.  He  helped 
her  to  win  her  case,  was  delighted  to  discover  she  was  a 
relative,  and  married  her." 

342 


FEUDALISM   AGAIN 

She  turned  another  page  less  diffidently.  "  Here  is  an 
Engelborne  in  a  cowl,  among  the  pall-bearers  at  Sir  Philip 
Sidney's  funeral.  And  here  is  the  tomb  of  Dean  Nicholas 
Engelborne  in  Canterbury  Cathedral.  He  was  the  only 
person  who  was  ever  Dean  both  of  York  and  Canterbury." 

"  You  seem  to  have  flourished  gorgeously  under  the 
Stuarts,"  observed  Allegra,  turning  the  pages  for  herself. 

"  Yes.  Charles  I.  and  Henrietta  Maria  spent  their 
wedding-night  with  us,  and  the  Kit — the  Katharine  Engel- 
borne— of  the  seventeenth  century  won  the  greatest  distinc- 
tion of  any  of  us  by  being  created  Countess  in  her  own 
right.  This  was  because  she  followed  the  royal  exiles 
into  France,  and  when  better  times  came,  Charles  II.  was 
grateful.  He  was  very  good  to  his  friends,  whatever  peo- 
ple say — a  kind-hearted  good  fellow.  I  always  stick  up 
for  Charles  II." 

"  You  stick  up  for  Charles  II.  ?  Why,  Margaret,  this 
is  even  more  delicious  than  your  devil's  head !" 

"  But  my  devil's  head  is  ( proper,' "  and  Margaret 
joined  in  Allegra's  laughter. 

But  behind  Allegra's  laughter  was  a  reverence  for  Mar- 
garet's reverence,  a  half-sense  of  shame  in  never  having 
felt  the  appeal  of  her  own  ancestry.  Had  her  father  been 
wrong,  she  wondered,  in  repudiating  the  past  as  a  burden, 
instead  of  returning  to  it  as  an  inspiration?  Was  there 
not  something  after  all  in  this  sense  of  linked  generations, 
transmitted  traditions,  the  torch  of  nobility  handed  on, 
something  enkindling  in  the  memory  of  scholars,  knights, 
poets,  behind  one?  And  the  masses,  too,  were  they  the 
losers  by  the  existence  of  this  clique  ?  Did  it  not  radiate 
out  to  them  a  sense  of  dignified  and  beautiful  human  liv- 
ing ?  Were  the  Scotch  peasants  the  worse  for  their  rever- 
ence for  old  names  ?  Was  aristocracy,  as  she  knew  Raph- 
ael Dominick  would  put  it,  Evolution  by  artificial  selec- 
tion ?  But  then,  why  were  there  so  many  silly  scapegrace 
young  lords  ?  She  put  the  question  to  Margaret. 

"  If  there  is  anything  low  or  vulgar,  it  comes  through 

343 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

exogamy,"  replied  Margaret,  with  her  usual  readiness, 
"  you  will  always  find  a  strain  of  base  blood  has  crept  in." 

Allegra  smiled  pensively  at  the  symmetrical  theories 
of  life  Margaret  had  built  up  for  herself.  But  then,  types 
like  Raphael — how  did  they  spring  out  of  fortuitous  con- 
junctions ?  No,  the  blue-blood  theory  did  not  work :  hu- 
manity's only  chance  lay  in  a  universal  national  tradition, 
a  common  fund  of  inspiring  ideals  into  which  any  and 
every  man  might  be  born,  so  that  all  might  die  noble,  but 
none  could  be  noble  at  birth. 

"  I  wish  I  could  share  your  belief  in  Feudalism,  Mar- 
garet," she  said. 

"  A  Marjorimont  ought  not  to  differ  from  an  Engel- 
borne.  To  me  it  seems  that  chivalry  and  the  Christliest 
interpretation  of  Noblesse  Oblige  both  sprang  from  the 
feudal  system,  that  it  taught  reciprocal  responsibility,  and 
crushed  out  the  each-for-himself  doctrine  better  than  any 
other  system  has  done.  Do  you  believe,  then,  in  the  Mod- 
ern World,  with  its  fierce  competitions,  its  war  of  Capital 
and  Labor,  its  main  bond  of  union,  self-interest  ?" 

Allegra  puckered  her  lips  as  in  her  girlhood,  wondering 
humorously  if  by  this  roundabout  channel  she  would  ever 
be  converted  to  the  Duchess's  point  of  view,  as  the  Duchess 
had  so  often  predicted.  "  Wait  till  you  are  older !"  The 
very  timbre  of  her  aunt's  voice  rang  in  her  ears.  It  was 
at  least  true  that  never  since  that  far-off  moment  when 
the  Duchess  had  railed  at  the  degenerate  scion  of  the  Ethel- 
stans  had  such  a  sense  of  the  ennobling  value  of  a  historic 
tradition  penetrated  her.  And  as  it  was  the  gentlest  and 
tenderest  of  Christian  souls  that  made  her  see  any  dignity 
in  fighting,  so  it  was  the  friend  of  those  poor  women  and 
the  slum-babies  that  made  her  feel  any  virtue  in  pride 
of  birth.  And  then  it  came  upon  her  how  curious  it  was 
that  just  to  "  Fizzy  "  The  Manor  House  should  have  fallen 
— "  Fizzy  "  with  his  conception  of  History  as  a  pompous 
fraud  and  the  British  Empire  as  a  badly  organized  busi- 
ness. 

344 


CHAPTEK  XII 

ARMS    AND    THE    MEN 

NGLAND  needs  a  war."  That  was  Broser's  new 
argument  to  the  ungenial  critic  on  his  hearth,  for 
Allegra  had  not  been  able  to  keep  to  her  mental  resolution 
to  let  her  husband  go  his  own  way,  especially  as  her  vale- 
tudinarian father  from  his  distant  country-seat  was  writ- 
ing her  pathetic  private  letters,  urging  her  to  use  all  her 
influence  against  this  final  annihilation  of  his  life-work. 

"  That  your  husband  is  honestly  convinced  of  the  neces- 
sity of  annexing  Novabarba  I  do  not  doubt,"  he  wrote, 
"  though  it  will  always  remain  the  bitterest  memory  of 
an  unhappy  career  that  it  was  I  who  stood  sponsor  for 
him.  But  pin  him  to  his  own  utterances,  ask  him  to  con- 
sider how  he  undermines  all  his  own  schemes  of  social 
legislation.  What  money  will  be  left  for  the  greater  pur- 
poses of  peace  ?  In  a  war  twenty,  nay  fifty,  millions  flow 
away  like  water,  while  in  peace  Parliament  grudges  every 
million  it  doles  out  for  educational  or  humanitarian 
purposes.  They  called  me  Petty  Cash,  but  it  seems  to  me 
'tis  the  Great  Exchequer  I  look  after.  They  accused  me 
of  the  commercial  spirit,  and  I  have  indeed  been  a  manu- 
facturer. I  have  manufactured  peers.  Instead  of  de- 
stroying the  old  aristocracy,  I  have  created  apes  of  it.  The 
middle  classes  whom  I  endeavored  to  emancipate  from  the 
feudal  servitude  have  become  feudal  lords  themselves,  with 
second-hand  military  ideals."  And  so  he  would  ramble 
on,  and  Allegra  tried  hopelessly  to  be  his  mouthpiece. 

"  England  needs  a  war,"  Broser  retorted,  obstinately. 
"  A  woman  cannot  feel  that  we  have  all  grown  womanish. 

345 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

We  are  stagnant,  infected  with  literary  and  artistic  cor- 
ruptions. The  national  fibre  needs  renewing.  A  war 
will  shake  up  all  classes." 

"  And  shake  you  up  to  the  top !" 

"  How  clever !  You  think  that's  at  the  bottom  of  it." 
And  Broser  laughed  sneeringly. 

"  You  confessed  as  much — in  Orvieto." 

"  Somebody  has  got  to  be  at  the  top.  Can  you  name 
anybody  stronger?" 

Allegra  was  silent.  She  felt  his  was  the  voice  of  the 
new  England :  not  of  the  new  England  as  he  had  hastily 
misconceived  it  in  his  first  gropings,  taking  for  the  onward 
flood  a  back-wash  of  eighteenth-century  optimism,  but 
of  the  new  England  generated  by  the  throbbing  screws  and 
pistons  of  the  age  of  machinery,  emerging  through  an  ex- 
otic aesthetic  green-sickness  and  socialistic  sentimentalism 
to  a  native  gospel  of  strenuousness  and  slang,  welcome  to 
the  primordial  brute  latent  beneath  the  nebulous  spiritual 
gains  of  civilization.  Broser's  was  this  dynamic  energy, 
this  acceptance  of  brute  facts,  this  cockney  manliness,  this 
disdain  of  subtleties,  this  pagan  joy  of  life :  it  had  under- 
lain his  championship  of  the  poor  and  was  as  honestly 
available  in  the  service  of  the  rich.  And  his  gifts  were 
the  more  potent  that  he  had  polished  his  manners  and 
phrases,  absorbed  almost  automatically  from  Allegra 
contemporary  literature  and  art,  and  exuded  them  with 
apt  brilliance  in  the  House  and  in  society.  No,  there  was 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  rule  England. 

"  Ah,  you  know  there  is  nobody  else,"  he  said,  delight- 
ed by  his  wife's  failure  to  reply.  "  Your  silence  is  gold- 
en. You  know  we  must  rise  to  the  top." 

"  Speak  for  yourself." 

"  You  will  rise  with  me." 

"  I  will  not." 

"  You  can't  help  it." 

"  I  can.     I  will  leave  you." 

"  What !  Like  what's-her-name  in  The  Doll's  House. 

346 


ARMS   AND   THE   MEN 

Yon  have  too  much  originality  to  take  a  leaf  out  of  Ib- 
sen." 

She  bit  her  lips.  She  had  herself  instructed  him  in  the 
play  in  the  early  happy  days. 

"  Come,  don't  look  so  glum.  I  saw  the  Prince  to-day, 
and  he  was  more  cordial  than  he  has  ever  been." 

"  I  have  always  found  him  cordial  enough." 

"  You,  of  course.  But  he  has  never  asked  to  be  asked 
here." 

Allegra  turned  away. 

"  He's  a  good  fellow — he  doesn't  bear  malice.  I 
shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  if  he  honors  us  one  day — " 

"  I  shall  be  honored." 

When  war  was  actually  declared,  the  poor  old  Earl  of 
Yeoford,  who  had  hoped  against  hope,  took  to  his  bed,  and 
the  Countess,  always  apprehensive  of  the  worst,  telegraph- 
ed for  all  his  children. 

But  when  the  half-distracted  Allegra  arrived — only  out- 
raced  by  Joan  (with  Fizzy  in  her  train) — she  found 
him  being  wheeled  about  his  sunny  deer-park  in  a  Bath 
chair,  and  suffering  merely  a  few  twinges  of  his  gout.  The 
person  who  wheeled  him  was  his  devoted  Countess.  Noth- 
ing could  exceed  her  solicitude  for  his  health  and  comfort 
now  these  were  no  longer  useful  in  the  service  of  the  na- 
tion. He  had  in  fact  supplanted  every  rival  creature 
as  the  pet  of  her  old  age,  and  she  had  never  replaced  the 
rat  which  Larrups  had  killed,  though  dogs  might  now 
be  found  curled  up  in  every  cushioned  seat,  and  she 
seemed  to  think  it  rude  of  human  beings  to  disturb  them. 
The  Earl's  throat,  too,  had  grown  better  by  its  long  rest, 
for,  although  the  aged  statesman  still  occasionally  wan- 
dered into  the  House  of  Lords  to  vote  for  something  Radi- 
cal, he  rarely  spoke,  and  was  still  more  rarely  reported 
at  any  length.  A  generation  had  arisen  that  knew  him 
not,  but  which  when  he  fulfilled  his  wife's  fears  would 
learn  from  the  papers  that  another  link  with  the  past 
had  been  broken.  But  this  resurrection  of  the  Novabar- 

347 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

bese  excitement  roused  the  sleeping  lion.  He  was  deter- 
mined to  go  to  London  and  roar  amid  the  crimson  up- 
holstery and  rich-dyed  windows  of  the  aristocratic  arena, 
much  to  Lady  Yeoford's  anxiety. 

"  Nonsense !  What  can  you  do  ?"  she  urged  with  un- 
conscious cruelty. 

"  I  can  denounce  the  Government." 

Allegra  was  touched  to  tears. 

"  But  you  know  it's  no  good  denouncing  it  in  the  House 
of  Lords,"  she  said  gently. 

"  You  might  as  profitably  denounce  it  in  the  Monkey 
House  at  the  Zoo,"  put  in  Fizzy  more  brutally. 

"  What  is  the  House  of  Lords  but  a  Monkey  House  ?" 
said  the  old  man,  grasping  eagerly  at  his  favorite  griev- 
ance. "  All  these  brand-new  peers — these  brewers  and 
bankers — aping  the  old  feudal  lords,  mimicking  their 
mediaeval  militarism." 

"  The  war  is  certainly  very  popular  with  all  classes," 
remarked  Lady  Yeoford.  "  I  saw  a  flag  waving  at  the 
vicarage,  and  poor  little  Tim,  the  cripple,  pretending 
to  bayonet  another  boy  with  his  crutch." 

"  Popular !"  he  echoed  angrily.  "  Of  course  it's  popu- 
lar. So  is  sport.  A  war  is  so  obvious.  Brass  bands, 
uniforms,  bayonets,  blood :  the  prize-fighter  interests  every- 
body, only  some  classes  are  ashamed  to  say  so.  Ancient 
races  may  have  been  soldiers  first  and  nothing  after,  but, 
in  the  modern  world,  the  soldier  is  only  the  guardian  of 
civilization.  The  miner,  the  railway  servant,  the  sewer 
laborer — each  risks  his  life  daily  but  not  so  intoxicating- 
ly,  and  is  shovelled  into  an  obscure  grave.  The  sailor 
fights  the  common  foe  of  all  humanity  and  is  the  inter- 
mediary of  civilization.  Hence  the  truer  romance  of  the 
sea.  The  soldier's  risk  is  only  run  in  actual  war-time ; 
otherwise  his  occupation  is  healthy  and  easy.  He  is  right- 
ly boycotted  from  the  theatres.  We  keep  him  out  of  sight 
as  we  do  the  slaughter-man.  When  he  does  his  duty,  when 
he  really  fights  and  earns  all  the  back  wages,  we  fall  at 


ARMS   AND   THE   MEN 

his  feet  astounded.  We  heap  honors  upon  him,  and  make 
up  a  purse  for  his  generals.  We  gloat  over  his  ghastly 
gallantry.  We  thrill  as  he  transfixes  two  savages  on  one 
bayonet.  The  brute  in  us  licks  its  chops  over  all  this 
blood,  and  the  coward  in  us  is  secretly  content  to  watch 
the  devilry  as  securely  as  the  Spaniards  a  bull-fight." 

"  But  don't  you  think  it  really  stirs  up  people  to  noble 
emotions  ?"  the  Countess  asked,  as  if  collecting  informa- 
tion. 

"  Noble  emotions !"  he  roared,  "  to  want  to  slaughter 
their  fellow-men !" 

"  But  they  are  slaughtered  themselves,  poor  things." 

"  The  risk  is  generally  not  very  much  against  the  sav- 
ages we  fight,"  he  growled.  "  We  lose  fifty  to  their  ten 
thousand — that's  about  our  average.  A  child  could  turn 
a  machine-gun  and  annihilate  an  army." 

"  You  ought  hardly  to  say  there's  no  risk.  Look  at  the 
poisoned  arrow  that  killed  poor  Tom." 

"  Poor  Tom  was  poisoned  before  he  left  England.  Oh, 
if  some  one  would  only  discover  how  to  destroy  this  mi- 
crobe of  militarism  which  ravages  the  world." 

"  You  did  your  best,  you  and  Bryden,"  put  in  Allegra, 
tenderly. 

He  sighed.  "  There  was  a  moment  in  which  the  world 
was  sane  and  listened  to  us,  and  dreamed  like  Isaiah  and 
Virgil  of  universal  peace.  That  was  a  brave  day  when, 
deaf  to  the  barking  of  patriotic  puppies,  we  gave  the 
Ionian  Islands  back  to  Greece,  and  reducing  England's 
Empire  enlarged  England's  honor.  Oh,  but  I  have  seen  this 
coming;  the  first  Novabarbese  war  was  only  the  advance 
wave.  These  jubilant  martial  processions,  this  persistent 
representation  of  England  as  an  imperial  nation  of  sol- 
diers and  sailors,  this  slurring  over  the  fact  that  it  is  really 
a  nation  of  shopkeepers,  and  that  its  best  interest  is  to  be 
a  nation  of  shopkeepers,  this  concentration  of  royal  favor 
on  the  non-working,  non-intellectual  classes,  while  the  wife 
of  a  shopkeeper  may  not  even  be  presented  at  Court,  this 

349 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

outworn  military  feudalism  bolstered  up  in  the  interests 
of  portionless  younger  sons — all  this,  set  to  music-hall 
measures  by  the  Jingo  bards  who  have  caught  the  ear  of  a 
nation  that  once  listened  to  Deldon,  all  this,  I  say,  had  fo- 
mented a  fever,  which  was  bound  to  seek  a  cure  in  blood- 
letting. And  my  only  consolation  is  that  this  Novabarbese 
war  will  stave  off  a  more  serious  conflict  with  France, 
with  Germany,  with  America — but  who  knows  ?  God  send 
it  does  not  set  the  whole  of  Europe  in  a  blaze !  Patriotism 
no  longer  means,  Love  your  country :  it  means,  Hate  your 
neighbors.  Scramble  with  them  for  every  inch  of  un- 
appropriated territory.  A  new  Shakspere  play  would  be 
a  greater  addition  to  the  Empire  than  a  thousand  square 
miles  of  ISTovabarba." 

"  I  wish  Shakspere  had  written  another  play,"  said 
Lady  Yeoford.  "  There  is  nothing  worth  reading  now- 
adays, except  the  works  of  our  Welsh  bards,  especially 
the  Chief  Bard  Positive  of  the  Order." 

This  reminded  Allegra  to  ask  after  the  Positive  Poet 
in  question,  Barda's  father,  who,  she  knew,  was  now  at- 
tached to  the  household  as  a  factotum,  and  who  dedicated 
his  poems  to  the  Countess  of  Yeoford,  generous  patron  of 
the  Muses. 

"  We  shall  meet  him,"  said  the  Countess.  "  He  went 
into  the  village  with  the  telegrams  to  tell  the  children 
your  father  is  better,  but  I  suppose,  like  you,  they  will 
have  started  already.  Still,  I  think  I  deserve  some  atten- 
tion from  my  family.  Oh,  there  is  a  poor  dead  hedgehog 
on  the  path."  She  took  it  up  tenderly  and  hid  it  in  the 
bushes. 

Soon  after,  Gwenny's  bardic  brother  came  towards  them 
— a  squat  man  with  a  red  beard.  Nobody  could  look  the 
mystic  less  than  this  ex-pawnbroker,  yet  at  the  faintest  en- 
couragement he  would  throw  open  to  you  the  world  of 
Druidic  lore  in  which  he  had  his  being.  He  discoursed 
now  to  Allegra  on  the  "  Nod  Cyfrin,"  the  mystic  symbol 
of  the  Druids,  and  how  he  had  discovered  it  in  the  tripod 

.  350 


ARMS   AND   THE   MEN 

of  the  Greek,  the  God-syinbol  of  the  Hebrews,  the  phy- 
lactery of  the  Pharisee,  while  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
feathers  and  the  broad  arrow  of  the  convict  were  only 
modern  transformations  of  it.  As  his  endless  learning 
meandered  on,  Allegra  wondered  at  this  calm  centre  of 
unreason  amid  the  unrest  of  sane  humanity. 

He  was  not  the  only  poet  on  the  premises,  for  the  Earl, 
too,  kept  one,  and  the  Bath  chair  presently  halted  at  a 
summer-house  in  which  Deldon  was  writing  his  name  on 
slips  of  paper. 

"  They  are  doing  me  justice  at  last,"  he  said  to  Allegra. 
"  And  though  my  first  poems  were  not  copyrighted  in 
America,  they  are  paying  me  ten  pounds  for  a  thousand 
autographs  to  be  pasted  in  an  '  Autograph  Edition.'  I 
have  dedicated  it  to  your  noble  father,  '  to  the  Maecenas 
of  our  era,  most  illustrious  of  the  Earls  of  Yeoford.' ' 

The  poor  forgotten  Deldon  looked  every  inch  an  immor- 
tal, with  his  great  white  brow  and  his  flowing  white  hair 
and  beard,  a  slight  shade  of  brown  in  a  fraction  of  the 
mustache  alone  testifying  to  the  colored  past.  He  wore 
a  shabby  black  jacket  suit  with  a  corded  silk  cape,  a  high 
clerical  collar,  and  a  clerical  waistcoat,  a  red  shirt  showing 
at  his  wrists.  On  his  head  was  a  sort  of  chocolate  night- 
cap, with  a  black  tassel  swinging  behind.  The  fire  of  his 
candid  blue  eyes  was  unquenched.  Allegra  recognized 
with  a  flash  of  insight  that  those  wonderful  blue  eyes 
had  looked  out  on  the  world  for  a  lifetime  and  seen  noth- 
ing; that  the  poet's  youthful  visions  stood  and  would  al- 
ways stand  between  him  and  the  truth  of  things.  Happy 
poet  in  his  bower,  unaware  that  the  world  had  revolved, 
still  writing  his  name  on  slips  of  paper,  still  chiselling 
and  polishing  his  old  Swedenborgian  allegories  and  labor- 
lyrics  for  a  posterity  that  would  not  read  them,  still  mu- 
sically enamoured  of  the  fine  words  that  had  buttered  his 
parsnips,  the  rolling  and  crashing  thunders  to  which  the 
cause  of  the  People  lent  itself  so  felicitously.  Happier, 
Allegra  thought,  than  his  noble  patron,  morbidly  over- 

351 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

conscious  of  failure,  prematurely  despairing  of  a  posterity 
that  would  perhaps  after  all  worship,  nay,  even  follow 
him. 

By  dinner-time  the  whole  Marjorimont  brood  had  ar- 
rived from  town  to  see  the  Earl  die,  all  delightfully  dis- 
appointed to  find  the  Countess  had  cried  "  Wolf,"  yet  all 
vexed  to  be  torn  from  the  opening  season.  There  was  that 
happy  couple,  Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Pangthorne,  who 
had  married  for  love  and  found  money  come  to  them  as 
profusely  as  babies.  There  were  Jim  and  his  Minnie,  liv- 
ing in  a  secret  world  of  their  own,  painting  and  writing, 
but  neither  exhibiting  nor  publishing.  Jim  had  risen  su- 
perior even  to  his  own  desire  to  bring  out  erratic  little 
magazines,  and  the  last,  which  began  with  the  unconven- 
tional design  of  appearing  at  unstated  intervals,  had  ended 
conventionally  by  ceasing  to  appear  at  all.  There  was 
Dulsie,  interrupted  in  the  flirtations  she  pursued  under 
the  wing  of  Connie,  still  unwed,  but  masking  her  sorrow 
or  parading  her  satisfaction — one  knew  not  which — in  her 
flaunted  motto :  "  You  grow  tired  of  any  one  man,  espe- 
cially if  you  marry  him."  There  was  Connie,  a  portly 
fashionable  matron,  strikingly  like  the  Duchess  of  Dales- 
bury  in  the  days  when  that  lady  had  first  dawned  upon  Al- 
legra.  Only  the  Duchess  herself  was  wanting,  for  if  the 
Hon.  Robert  Broser  had  refrained  from  disturbing  the  last 
thoughts  of  his  whilom  Elijah,  he  was  represented  by  his 
daughters,  Polly  and  Molly,  the  twins  untwained  by 
matrimony,  and  now  distinguishable  by  the  husbands  tack- 
ed on  to  them.  Even  before  marriage,  they  had  come 
to  believe  themselves  of  the  exclusive  caste,  and  to  speak 
of  themselves  as  members  of  the  Marjorimont  family,  find- 
ing that  connection  more  congenial  than  the  Midstoke 
Brosers,  from  whom  the  paternal  Broser  was  entirely 
dissociated  in  their  twice-proud  souls.  Their  father  and 
the  Earl  never  met  now,  for  as  Fizzy  used  to  complain : 
'  Yeoford  always  took  politics  so  seriously.  If  I  refused 
to  speak  to  all  the  axe-grinders  and  turn-coats,  I  might 

352 


ARMS   AND   THE   MEN 

as  well  retire  to  La  Trappe.     After  all,  politics  is  only 
inconsistency  reduced  to  a  career." 

As  William  Curve,  the  farm-laborer  M.P., was,  like  Del- 
don,  already  staying  in  the  house,  the  indomitable  and 
immemorial  Gwenny,  "  the  family  skeleton  "  now  in  no 
mere  metaphoric  sense,  had  her  yellow  shrivelled  hands 
full,  and  but  that  the  funeral  meats  warmly  furnished 
forth  the  dinner  table,  she  would  for  once  have  fallen  be- 
fore the  occasion. 

It  was  not  a  gay  dinner  all  the  same,  though  there  was 
much  cordiality  in  some  of  the  reunions,  the  twins  be- 
ing always  delighted  to  find  themselves  with  the  step- 
mother who  had  been  the  guardian  angel  of  their  girlhood. 
But  the  Novabarbese  war,  the  first  blow  of  which  had  been 
struck  immediately  by  the  troops  on  the  spot,  with  suc- 
cess indeed,  but  with  heavy  toll  of  lives,  overshadowed 
everything.  The  conversation  was  left  to  Mr.  William 
Fitzw inter;  nor  did  any  one  contradict  his  sentiments, 
for  fear  of  exciting  the  Earl  and  restoring  the  family 
gathering  to  its  original  character. 

"  What  puzzles  me,"  said  Fizzy,  "  is  why  we  support 
hospitals  or  cocker  wretched  incurables  whose  life  is  a 
burden.  Is  human  life  sacred  or  is  it  not?  One  little 
murder  in  Whitechapel  convulses  the  nation,  while  in 
Novabarba  we  stick  men  like  pigs.  We  pay  our  own  war- 
dragon  his  annual  tribute  of  young  men.  Yet  in  India 
we  put  down  Juggernaut  and  Suttee.  For  my  part  I 
think  Suttee  a  much  misunderstood  institution.  If  Eng- 
lish wives  understood  they  had  to  be  cremated  with  their 
husbands'  corpses,  we  should  have  fewer  girls  marrying  old 
men." 

"  I  am  sorry  I  did,"  said  Joan. 

"  My  darling — you  forget  you  made  me  young  again. 
Tell  me,  O  soul  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruel- 
ty to  Animals,  are  there  not  fighting-cocks  even  among 
your  own  members  ?" 

"  Lots,"  sighed  Joan. 

353 


"  Just  as  I  thought.  And  they  don't  mind  twenty 
thousand  horses  being  disembowelled  ?" 

"  Don't,  please,"  said  Allegra. 

Fizzy  smiled.  "  Truly  the  Englishman's  mind  is  a 
muddle.  His  left  hand  knoweth  not  what  his  right  hand 
doth.  He  pays  Churches  to  say  one  thing,  Armies  to  do 
the  opposite,  and  Board  Schools  to  unteach  both  things. 
His  nearest  approach  to  a  principle  is  the  international 
duty  of  guaranteeing  investments.  They  say  that  trade 
follows  the  flag,  but  it  is  the  flag  that  follows  trade.  The 
march  of  Empire  is  a  commercial  advance  covered  by  can- 
non. Once  this  movement  was  described  as  the  advance 
of  Christianity.  But  the  missionaries  having  lost  pres- 
tige, it  is  now  described  as  the  advance  of  civilization, 
so  that  John  Bull  is  still  happy.  The  old  Roman  motto 
was  to  conquer  the  world  for  Rome's  good — " 

"  His  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono, 
Imperium  sine  fine  dedi," 

quoted  the  Earl. 

"  I  suppose  that  means  '  grab  all  the  Empire  you  can.' 
Rome  was  honest.  Now  that  the  ancient  ideal  of  military 
glory  is  discredited,  and  Christianity  has  forced  hypocrisy 
upon  the  world,  we  pretend  to  conquer  the  world  for  the 
world's  good.  At  bottom  it  is  the  same  lust  for  bigness." 

"  And  will  have  the  same  end,"  said  the  Earl  solemnly. 

"  Don't  take  any  of  that,  father,"  interposed  Lady 
Joan  hastily.  "  There's  sugar  in  it." 

The  Earl  went  on,  thwarted  fork  in  hand :  "  But  what 
maddens  me  is  the  idea  that  we  are  spreading  civilization. 
Why,  we  have  scarcely  arrived  at  the  conception  of  civ- 
ilization at  home.  When  we  have  swept  away  our  own 
slums,  it  will  be  time  to  clear  the  Augean  swamps  of 
Novabarba.  The  conquest  of  Novabarba  really  means 
an  uncivilized  millionaire  or  two  moving  into  Belgravia." 

"  Yes ;  but  it  reacts  also  on  the  temper  of  the  race," 
urged  Polly. 

354 


ARMS   AND   THE   MEN 

"  We  tend  to  grow  flabby  and  anaemic,"  added  Molly. 

"  We  must  become  strenuous,"  they  wound  up  in  a  duet. 

Fizzy  gave  one  of  his  old  table-shaking  laughs. 

"  Good  gracious,  children,  has  papa  been  stuffing  you 
with  that  conventional  cant?" 

The  filial  branch  of  Polly  and  Molly's  pride  was 
aroused.  "  But  it's  not  cant,"  they  said  together. 

"  You  two !"  retorted  Fizzy.  "  You  should  be  the  last 
to  object  to  Polly-and-Molly-coddling!" 

"  Oh  !  oh  !"  from  the  whole  table. 

"  Well,"  said  Fizzy,  unabashed,  "  do  you  mean  to  say 
that  we  must  become  strenuous — at  the  expense  of  our 
victims !" 

"  Hear,  hear,"  said  Allegra,  who  had  at  last  thought  out 
the  reply  to  her  husband's  pet  contentions.  "  All  these 
arguments  put  forward  the  compensations  of  a  righteous 
war  as  the  reasons  for  a  wicked  war." 

"  In  any  case,"  added  Fizzy,  "  I  can't  see  how  you  be- 
come strenuous  because  somebody  else  sweats  and  bleeds 
five  thousand  miles  away.  I  shall  next  expect  to  hear 
that  we  must  sweep  away  the  Novabarbese  because  they 
don't  wash." 

"  Well,  father  does  say  the  hegemony  of  the  world  is 
to  the  cold-tubbing  races,"  admitted  Polly,  blissfully  ig- 
norant of  her  father's  floor-splashing  debut. 

"  My  child,"  replied  Fizzy,  "  I  was  not  aware  that 
Whitechapel  washes  enthusiastically,  and  I  do  know  that 
at  the  People's  Palace  nobody  is  allowed  in  the  swim- 
ming-bath without  passing  through  what  I  think  washer- 
women call  '  the  first  water.' ' 

"  My  dear  William !"  remonstrated  the  Countess. 

"  My  dear  mother !     I  take  wine  with  you." 

"At  Eton,"  said  the  Earl,  "I  housed  with  the  pick 
of  our  Novabarbese  generals.  There  wasn't  a  tub  in  the 
place.  All  through  winter  we  waited  till  the  Thames 
was  tepid." 

"  The  'Varsities  boasted  of  very  few  baths,  either," 

355 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

Fizzy  added.  "  And  how  many  bath-rooms  were  there 
in  Belgravia  when  we  were  young  ?  Our  Empire  was 
built  up  by  the  unwashed,  who  were  made  Companions 
of  the  Bath  in  reward." 

"  An  Oxford  man  told  me  that  in  the  monkish  ages 
dirt  was  a  virtue,"  said  Dulsie. 

"  Quite  true,"  said  Fizzy.  "  Dirt  was  next  to  godli- 
ness." 

Jim  here  made  his  one  contribution  to  the  conversation. 
"  All  the  cackle  about  cold  tubs  and  muscle  is  irrele- 
vant. Modern  battles  are  won  by  brain,  not  brawn.  The 
future  Napoleon  will  be  a  paralytic  chess-player  carried 
about  the  field  on  a  water-bed." 

"  And  paralytic  poets  on  water-beds  are  responsible 
for  all  this  cracking-up  of  strenuousness,"  said  Fizzy. 
"  Convalescents  and  incurables  dream  wistfully  of  flour- 
ishing cutlasses  on  pirate  ships,  and  a  man  who  can't  stick 
on  a  horse  sings  lovingly  of  cavalry  charges.  Thomson, 
the  author  of  '  Rule  Britannia,'  was  never  in  cold  water 
in  his  life,  while  he  died,  according  to  Dr.  Johnson,  of  a 
chill  caught  on  the  Thames." 

"Yes,"  put  in  the  Earl  eagerly.  "  Aeschylus  fought  at 
Marathon  and  Salamis  but  you  don't  find  him  shrieking 
for  war.  His  interest  is  in  moral  problems.  For  war-songs 
we  go  to  the  deformed  schoolmaster,  Tyrtaeus." 

"  Was  Tyrtseus  deformed  ?"  cried  Fizzy.  "  I'm  so  glad. 
Proves  my  point.  There's  some  use  in  the  Classics  after 
all." 

"  But  he  sang  the  Spartans  to  victory,"  said  Lady  Min- 
nie coldly. 

"  Pure  literary  lasciviousness,"  Fizzy  persisted. 
"  Our  admirals  and  generals  don't  yowl  about  manliness. 
Their  joy  is  to  read  books,  and  their  ambition  is  to  write 
them.  They  yearn  for  plays  and  music  and  pictures  and 
the  blessings  of  civilization.  Do  you  think  they  enjoy 
seeing  their  friends  or  their  men  with  their  jaws  blown 
away,  or  their  eyes  gouged  out,  or  their — " 

356 


ARMS   AND   THE   MEN 

"Please!"  interrupted  Allegra  beseechingly. 

"  Be  strenuous !"  he  mocked  her. 

"  The  Empire  itself  is  only  a  literary  invention,"  said 
the  Earl.  "  A  Latin  word  misused.  It  all  began  with 
Palmerston's  Civis  Romanus  sum.  India  we  possess  in 
a  way,  but  it's  a  white  elephant.  But  Australia?  New 
Zealand  (  Canada  ?  Do  you  think  they'd  tolerate  one 
stroke  of  empery!  Say  Federation  of  Free  Peoples  and 
I  am  with  you." 

"  Well,  the  mission  of  England  should  be  to  prepare 
peoples  for  federation  with  her,"  urged  Allegra,  "  Isn't 
it  inspiring  to  picture  one  great  nation  spread  everywhere 
with  the  same  great  ideals  of  justice  and  freedom?" 

"  Anglo-Saxons,  of  course  ?"  said  Fizzy  sarcastically. 

"  No.  Why  leave  out  the  French  Canadians,  or  the 
Irish  ?  Or  the  Cape  Dutch  ?  Anglo  -  Imperials !"  Al- 
legra suggested. 

"  By  Jove,  what  a  good  name!"  cried  Lord  Arthur. 

"  Bob  will  bless  you  for  that,"  said  Fizzy.  "  Feder- 
Angles,  I  should  suggest  myself,  for  you  may  be  sure 
there  will  be  wrangles  enough." 


CHAPTEE   XIII 
RAPHAEL    RETURNS 

RAPHAEL  DOMINICK  gazed  at  Margaret  Engel- 
borne  in  stern  disapproval. 

"  But  this  will  never  do !  To  come  back  and  find  you 
like  this !" 

"  I  feel  very  white,  I  assure  you."  Margaret  had  a 
gamut  for  her  happy  moods,  where  other  people  have  only 
blue  and  black  for  their  miserable. 

"  You  look  it,"  Raphael  said  severely.  "  What  have 
you  been  doing?" 

"  Enjoying  myself." 

"  Let  us  not  fence." 

"  It  is  the  literal  truth.  I  have  so  many  keen  interests, 
my  nerves  get  worn  out.  Ask  the  doctors.  But  I  get  paid 
in  pleasure." 

"  In  pleasure !     You  are  in  pain  at  this  moment." 

"  I  am  happy  to  see  you.  Let  us  smoke  cigarettes  and 
pretend  it's  old  times." 

He  lit  a  cigarette  and  she  lit  hers  from  his,  male- 
fashion.  She  tried  to  take  Miranda  Grey's  wonted  chair, 
which  backed  the  light,  but  he  forestalled  her  and  con- 
tinued his  severe,  judicial  scrutiny  of  her  peaked  and  wan 
features.  Then  his  glooming  brow  announced  a  black- 
cap verdict. 

"  Don't  be  too  hard  on  me,"  she  pleaded. 

"  I  am  going  to  be  brutal.     Kit  is  killing  you." 

She  closed  her  lips. 

"  You  are  committing  suicide." 

That  stung  her.     "  Can  I  desert  Kit  ?" 

358 


"  '  KIT   IS  KILLING    YOU  '  " 


RAPHAEL   RETURNS 

"  Yes.     Of  two  lives  one  must  be  saved." 

"  We  are  both  in  God's  hand." 

He  turned  the  surgeon's  knife  in  the  wound.  "  You 
see  yourself  like  a  Sunday-school  heroine.  You  wish  to 
die  at  her  bedside." 

She  gasped.    "  You  are  cruel." 

"  I  am  kind.    Beware  of  spiritual  pride." 

"  You  force  me  to  speak.  I  pray  God  every  hour  that 
Kit  may  be  taken.  It  is  a  race  between  our  lives." 

"  O  great  rare  soul !"  he  thought.  He  took  her  hands. 
The  long  fingers  lay  deadly  cold  in  his.  "  Forgive  me," 
he  said.  "  You  have  the  courage  to  face  life  as  well  as 
death.  Did  I  hurt  you  much  ?" 

"  I  am  stinging  all  over.  But  perhaps  it  was  because 
I  could  not  see  your  face  very  clearly,  and  the  expression 
sometimes  contradicts  the  tongue." 

"  Your  eyes  are  growing  dim  again  ?" 

"  You  would  sit  with  your  back  to  the  light." 

"  No  prevarication."  His  grasp  of  her  hands  became 
imperious.  "  Your  eyes  are  failing  again." 

"  With  the  rest  of  me,"  she  said,  more  hopelessly  than 
he  had  ever  heard  her  speak. 

"  But  it  will  be  terrible  if  you  go  blind,"  he  said.  He 
thought:  "  She  will  perhaps  see  clearer  than  I." 

"  God  has  let  me  have  my  eyes  longer  than  I  dared 
to  hope.  Perhaps  He  will  still  spare  them." 

He  could  have  shaken  her.  Why  did  she  not  "  curse 
God  and  die  "  ?  He  thought  of  the  thousands  of  lewd, 
leering  eyes  in  the  London  streets,  eyes  that  sparkled  in 
the  sunshine,  while  Margaret's  must  fade  in  darkness. 

The  serving-maid  came  in:  their  hands  unclasped. 

"  Professor  Pont,  miss." 

"  What!"     Raphael  sprang  to  his  feet. 

"  You  don't  want  to  meet  him,  I  know.  Nobody  does. 
I'll  see  him  in  the  dining-room." 

"  What  nonsense !  I  should  particularly  like  to  see 
him.  He's  an  old  friend." 

359 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Really  ?  Then  perhaps  you  would  like  a  word  with 
him  alone." 

"  Your  delicacy  is  only  equalled  by  your  obstinacy. 
That  is  just  what  I  should  like." 

"  And  I'll  go  and  tell  Kit  you  are  looking  years  young- 
er. She  will  be  so  delighted." 

Professor  Pont  was  startled  to  find  Raphael  instead  of 
Margaret.  He  was  blanched  by  years  and  shames;  the 
pouch  under  his  right  eye  was  weirdly  wrinkled.  He 
shambled  in  with  self-conscious  shabbiness.  The  dapper 
Raphael's  extended  hand  of  equality  visibly  astonished 
him  more  than  Raphael's  presence. 

"  My  dear  Professor !  Take  a  chair  and  a  cigarette. 
Miss  Engelborne  will  be  in  presently.  Here  is  a  match. 
I  cannot  tell  you  what  peculiar  pleasure  it  gives  me  to  see 
you." 

!e  Wirklich?"  said  the  Professor,  surprised  into  his 
mother-tongue. 

"  You  occupy  in  my  mind  an  honorable  niche,  mein 
lieber  Otto,  a  unique  position  which  nobody  else  can  ever 
fill."  He  caressed  his  well-trimmed  beard. 

"  Ah !"  said  the  Professor,  smoothing  his  ragged  beard 
in  a  sort  of  hirsute  harmony. 

"  You  are  my  first  disillusion." 

The  Professor  scowled. 

"  Nehmen  Sie  es  mir  nicht  so  ubel,  lieber  Professor. 
I  owe  you  infinite  gratitude.  You  are  the  window  through 
which  I  first  looked  on  life  as  she  is.  Education  consists 
in  unlearning  all  we  learnt  at  school,  and  you  are  my 
abecedarian.  To  some  their  first  illusion  comes  as  their 
first  love.  I,  more  fortunate,  find  it  in  my  first  Editor." 

"  But  I  brought  you  out.    I  gave  you  your  first  chance." 

"  True :  you  published  my  '  Fame,'  but  I  have  never 
published  your  dishonor." 

"  Don't  hit  a  man  when  he's  down." 

"  Pardon  me.  I  was  thoughtless.  My  poor  Profess- 
or, you  who  are  a  fellow  Bevond-Man,  an  Uebermensch, 

360 


KAPHAEL   RETURNS 

how  came  you  to  let  these  lower  creatures  best  you  ?  You 
must  have  set  their  backs  up  by  posing  as  their  superior. 
Be  sure  the  first  man  who  let  the  apes  know  he  was  in- 
different to  their  chatter  got  mauled.  Mum's  the  word. 
And  what  are  you  doing  now  ?" 

"  Starving." 

"  That  soon  comes  to  an  end.  You  must  find  a  more 
permanent  occupation." 

"  Nobody  will  give  me  a  chance.  Miranda  Grey  is  mak- 
ing a  fortune  out  of  my  Cross  and  Crown,  but  twenty 
pounds  is  all  I  got  for  it." 

"  Did  you  write  C'ross  and  Crown  ?" 

A  faint  rose  of  Shame's  dawn  showed  on  the  grayed 
face.  "  What  is  a  man  to  do  ?  The  public  won't  have 
my  real  ideas.  For  my  new  System  of  World-Philosophy 
through  the  ISTot-Self-Ego-Concept,  I  can't  get  a  publisher, 
even  under  a  false  name." 

"  When  did  you  write  it  ?" 

"  I  thought  it  out  in — in  retirement.  It  wipes  out  all 
the  moderns.  They  are  so  superficial.  Even  Hegel  evades 
the  problem  of  Qualitative  Becoming.  As  for  your  Brit- 
ish Neo-Kantians,  pooh!" 

"  I  should  like  to  see  it,"  said  Raphael  with  genuine 
interest.  His  heart  warmed  to  the  rogue  who  had  mixed 
ontological  speculation  with  the  picking  of  opium. 

"  I  should  be  very  grateful." 

"  The  gratitude  is  owing  to  you.  I'll  pay  you  a  read- 
ing-fee of  two  guineas — no,  two  pounds !  The  finer  har- 
monies demand  two  pounds — on  one  condition." 

"  I  accept." 

"  That  you  cease  to  pester  Miss  Engelborne." 

Otto  tugged  uncomfortably  at  his  beard.  "  She  in- 
vited me." 

"How  could  that  be?" 

"  Through  Miranda  Grey." 

"  That  impossible  Margaret !"  he  thought  tenderly. 
"  No  sooner  does  she  hear  of  a  new  sorrow  than  she  aches 

361 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

to  assuage  it.  She  will  never  forgive  me  my  self-suffi- 
ciency." Aloud  he  said :  "  But  Miss  Engelborne  is  a  poor 
woman ;  she  will  have  the  brokers  in  herself,  if  she  is  not 
careful.  Ah,  there  is  the  bell  ringing.  Another  pension- 
er, probably." 

"  Will  you  advance  me  the  reading-fee  now  ?"  asked 
Pont  desperately. 

"  I  haven't  it  with  me.  Bring  the  MS.  to  my  lodging 
in  the  Mile  End  Road.  Here  is  my  card." 

Pont  surveyed  it  slowly.  Ned's  joyous  bark  greeting 
a  favorite  visitor  broke  the  silence. 

"  Well,  give  me  the  two  shillings  you  docked.  I'm 
hungry." 

Raphael  smiled  and  slipped  the  florin  into  his  hand 
as  Margaret  entered. 


CHAPTER   XIV 
CARRIED    FORWARD 

TDAPHAEL  had  scrupulously  timed  his  visit  to  Mar- 
JL\>  garet  so  as  not  to  coincide  with  Allegra's  days  or 
hours.  It  was  for  Margaret  alone  he  came.  Yet  the 
fates  would  have  it  that  Allegra  should  be  driving  near 
the  flat,  should  be  seized  with  the  idea  of  buying  flowers 
and  leaving  them  for  Kit,  that  Margaret  should  open  the 
door  to  the  groom,  and,  learning  that  Allegra  was  in  the 
carriage,  should  beg  her  to  come  up. 

It  would  be  throwing  good  material  away  to  neglect  such 
a  chance  of  weaving  one  of  her  real-life  episodes.  What 
a  pleasant  surprise  for  the  two  friends ! 

"  Good-afternoon,  Mr.  Pont,"  she  said.  "  Will  you 
please  come  into  the  dining-room  ?" 

As  the  Professor  passed  through  the  hall,  he  was  aston- 
ished to  brush  against  a  beautiful,  reddish-haired  woman. 
Involuntarily  he  looked  after  her,  as  she  entered  the  room 
he  had  left  and  shut  the  door  behind  her. 

"  Isn't  that  Lady  Allegra  Broser  ?"  he  inquired. 

"  Yes,"  said  Margaret  curtly. 

Thus  unexpectedly  arrived  the  moment  which  Allegra 
had  been  expecting.  What  was  the  real  Raphael  Domi- 
nick,  she  had  wondered  amid  the  resumed  whirl  of  her 
life.  Was  she  under  the  glamour  of  her  own  fantasy  of 
a  redeemer  ?  Did  he  borrow  color  and  mystery  from  the 
mediaeval  city? 

But  the  instant  she  saw  him  sitting  there,  sad,  inscru- 
table, and  comfortable,  haloed  by  cigarette  smoke,  she  per- 
ceived that,  like  Margaret  Engelborne,  he  bore  his  atmos- 

363 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

phere  with  him,  that  the  old  spell  was  upon  her,  and  that 
they  were  to  begin  where  they  had  left  off. 

He  jumped  up  and  they  shook  hands. 

"  You  are  in  London  for  the  season,"  she  said,  smiling. 

"  For  the  slumming  season.  Really,  an  obscure  person 
has  much  more  chance  of  meeting  the  fashionable  world 
by  pitching  his  tent  in  the  Mile  End  Road  than  by  in- 
sinuating himself  into  Park  Lane.  Lady  Joan  Fitzwinter 
is  not  the  only  swell  that  hunts  among  the  species  in  our 
back  streets,  though  she  makes  the  biggest  bag." 

"  But  you  don't  want  to  meet  the  swells.  Why  should 
you  live  there  ?" 

"  Why  not  ?  The  Mile  End  Road  is  much  finer  than 
any  in  Orvieto.  And  of  a  Saturday  night  we  have  mar- 
ket scenes,  quite  Neapolitan.  Belgravia  holds  nothing 
so  picturesque." 

"  But  it  is  so  far  from  the  centre." 

"  I  told  you  my  little  hoard  was  in  consols,  and  you 
know  how  the  Chancellor  cuts  down  our  interest.  Prob- 
ably it  never  occurred  to  you,  O  plutocrat,  that  to  be  near 
the  centre  is  impossible  save  for  the  species  with  detach- 
able golden  weapons.  0  fortunatos  nimium.  London  is 
Piccadilly  and  the  Park  or  it  is  nothing.  The  rest  is 
provincial,  nay  worse,  parochial.  To  live  in  London 
one  must  be  born  rich  or  die  dishonest.  Ah,  it  is  a  terrible 
town,  this  London,  that  tries  to  squeeze  every  ounce  of 
truth  and  honor  out  of  us,  every  drop  of  art  and  ambition. 
When  will  some  Beyond-Man  arise  to  give  his  friends 
bread  and  cheese,  as  Wordsworth  did  ?  Like  Wordsworth, 

"  I  am  opprest 

To  think  that  now  our  life  is  only  drest 
For  show:   mean  handiwork  of  craftsman,  cook, 
Or  groom.     We  must  run  glittering  like  a  brook." 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  opprest,"  she  said  mischievously. 
"  Any  emotion  is  better  than  death." 

He  dropped  into  his  chair  and  sent  a  provokingly  calm 

364 


CAREIED   FORWARD 

smoke-puff  towards  her.  "  My  emotion  is  purely  literary. 
If  I  had  lived,  I  should  have  lived  in  Piccadilly.  But 
Mile  End  is  good  enough  to  bury  one's  self  in." 

She  thought  of  the  real  "  living-dead  "  creature,  buried 
in  the  next  room,  and  replied  with  a  touch  of  impatience, 
as  she  instinctively  seated  herself  on  the  piano-stool :  "  You 
still  consider  yourself  a  ghost  ?" 

"  The  prig  amuses  you,  nicht  wahr?" 

She  smote  a  discord  on  the  piano  with  her  gloved  fingers, 
as  if  thumping  him.  "  Why  will  you  keep  on  saying 
that?" 

"  It  is  part  of  my  philosophy.     I  face  the  inevitable." 

"  You  meet  troubles  half-way.  Your  death  is  charac- 
teristic." 

"  And  I  thought  you  understood !"  He  was  so  con- 
temptuous that  she  murmured : 

"  I  thought  I  did— at  the  time." 

"  To  save  one's  life,  one  must  lose  it.  Is  that  such  new 
doctrine  ?" 

"  Now  I  don't  even  think  I  understand." 

"  To  live  means  to  act  But  action  is  only  for  the  brutal 
or  the  dishonest.  Your  husband  has  the  luck  to  be  both ; 
I  have  the  misfortune  to  be  neither.  Too  strong  to  be 
dishonest,  I  am  too  weak  to  be  brutal." 

"  But  is  Margaret  dishonest  ?     Is  Margaret  brutal  ?" 

"  Margaret  has  not  struggled  in  the  crowd.  She  is  the 
hereditary  grande  dame,  moving  among  dependants." 

"  But  I  have  acted." 

"  You !  You  who  cannot  bear  to  see  a  moth  burn ! 
Think  of  the  life-struggle  of  the  white-haired  shopman  who 
has  to  dye  his  hair  because  customers  dislike  the  aged." 

"  I  know,"  she  sighed,  drawing  off  her  gloves  auto- 
matically. "  Joan  has  taken  that  up." 

"  You  started  out  to  act — but  only  your  husband  has 
acted.  You  died  out — like  me." 

Something  in  her  breast  rose  in  protest.  "  I  am  not 
dead.  It  is  he  that  is  dead." 

365 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

*'  No ;  he  has  merely  evolved.  Like  the  tadpole.  The 
tadpole  starts  out  as  a  fish  and  a  vegetarian,  and  winds  up 
with  lungs,  and  carnivorous.  There  is  an  intermediate 
stage  in  which  it  feeds  on  its  own  obsolescent  tail.  You 
and  I  have  this  draggle  of  early  ideals  behind  us,  and  not 
till  we  devour  our  past  can  we  become  carnivorous." 

"  Mr.  Broser  was  always  carnivorous." 

"  That  is  pure  wifely  prejudice.  But  if  you  knew  he 
was  the  ' great  blond  beast*  of  Nietzsche,  why  did  you 
marry  a  man  so  much  younger  than  yourself?" 

"  Younger  ?" 

"  Yes ;  he  is  B.C.  You  are  A.D.,  and  very  late  A.D. 
Two  thousand  years  is  really  too  great  a  disparity  between 
man  and  wife.  No  wonder  you  are  unhappy.  But  I  am 
keeping  you  from  your  duties,  am  I  not  ?  Play  to  the  poor 
thirteenth  century  in  the  next  room." 

"  You  must  not  sneer  at  Kit." 

"  Sneer  at  St.  Kit !  Why,  I  had  two  candles  lit  for  her 
in  Orvieto  Cathedral." 

"You!" 

"  Yes — Kit  might  object  if  she  knew,  the  stiff-necked 
Protestant.  But  it  pleased  the  priest  and  it  pleased  me. 
White  candles  burning — it  seems  such  a  beautiful  symbol. 
My  mother  used  to  light  two  white  candles  on  Friday 
night.  She  practised  her  Judaism,  you  know.  It  was 
a  double  waste,  because  she  might  not  extinguish  them,  and 
that  was  the  only  night  I  must  not  write  by  them.  The 
other  nights  we  often  had  none.  But,"  he  added  gently, 
"  their  light  shone  over  the  rest  of  the  week." 

Her  fingers  began  playing  very  softly  the  Melan- 
cholic of  John  Field.  Presently,  glancing  round  shyly, 
she  saw  that  his  face  was  no  longer  fathomless.  Only  the 
despair  on  it  was  fathomless. 

"  My  music  makes  you  sad,"  she  murmured. 

"  No,  no ;  play  on.  Even  this  kind  of  death  has  its 
hell.  Don't  look  at  me,  please — like  St.  Gregory's  gloat- 
ing saints." 

366 


CARRIED   FORWARD 

"  I  am  not  in  heaven,  so  cannot  gloat."  The  music 
flowed  on  soothingly.  "  Margaret  has  quite  deserted  us," 
she  murmured. 

"  It  is  her  goodness,"  he  said. 

"  When  I  am  in  Orvieto  again,  I  shall  put  up  candles 
for  St.  Margaret." 

"  Old  Isaac  Walton  was  right  about  the  Engelbornes," 
said  Raphael. 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"  '  The  Engelbornes  are  a  race  beloved  by  God.' ' 

Allegra  heaved  a  sigh.  "  Whom  He  loveth  He  chas- 
tiseth.  Are  they  not  incredible  ?  In  their  place  I  should 
feel  like  Job's  wife." 

"  That  is  exactly  what  I  felt  for  a  moment  this  after- 
noon. But  that  is  because  we  are  faithless.  We  are 
like  tramps  out  of  work.  Margaret  is  the  amateur  tramp." 

"  I  do  not  follow  you." 

"  Haven't  you  noticed  the  plague  of  books  and  articles 
written  by  journalists  intent  on  gauging  the  sensations  of 
tramps  and  mendicants  ?  They  mouch  across  England,  or 
even  from  New  York  to  'Frisco  without  a  copper,  so  as 
to  know  how  it  feels  to  be  friendless,  foodless,  and  roof- 
less, even  how  it  feels  to  be  on  the  brink  of  dying  from 
hunger.  But  the  experiment  is  absurd.  The  gentleman 
tramp  knows  he  can  never  quite  fall  over  the  brink.  How- 
ever he  juggles  with  himself,  he  knows  in  the  far  back  of 
his  being  he  has  only  to  telegraph  to  his  father,  his  editor, 
his  bankers,  and  that  wee  bit  of  consciousness  makes  all 
the  difference.  So  it  is  with  Margaret  and  Kit.  Hungry 
and  footsore  tramps,  they  know  Rothschild  is  behind  them. 
In  short — there  is  always  God." 

"  But  even  the  son  of  His  Father  said  '  Lama  Sdbach- 
thani ' — why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?" 

"  That  is  the  finest  touch  in  the  Gospels,"  said  Raphael 
Dommick. 

367 


CHAPTEK     XV 
MODERN   LOVE 

ALLEGE  A  and  Raphael  met  several  times  at  Mar- 
-£jL  garet's  flat :  for  though  they  had  no  positive  appoint- 
ment, not  to  meet  would  have  been  a  disappointment. 
Margaret  continued  to  fade  away,  and  Raphael  to  re- 
monstrate violently  with  her  on  her  dissipation  of  her 
strength  in  a  hundred  and  one  passionate  labors  and 
prayers  for  others.  "  Economize  your  goodness :  it  will 
last  longer  and  do  more."  To  which  she  would  retort, 
"  One  might  spare  one's  self  and  still  die,  and  then  what 
vain  remorse !"  Allegra,  too,  would  sometimes  lunch  with 
her,  just  to  see  that  she  ate,  for  when  left  to  herself  her 
meals  were  mere  bird-pecks,  and  one  square  meal  satisfied 
two  days.  But  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  wait 
the  issue  in  the  ghastly  race,  and  hope  that  Margaret 
would  survive  her  sister  and  then  be  not  too  far  gone  for 
recuperation.  Margaret  herself  never  complained.  To 
cry  "  Oh  "  before  a  servant  would  have  been  undignified, 
before  an  equal,  selfish.  She  was  always  unruffled  and 
sweet  in  a  flowing  gown,  with  a  spray  of  blossom  at  her 
aching  breast.  Once  she  wore  a  sprig  of  oak,  for  it  was 
Oak- Apple  Day,  and  her  heart  yearned  over  the  Stuarts. 

Pont  turned  up  one  day  when  she  had  left  Raphael  and 
Allegra  together  and  was  conducted  to  the  same  room  by 
the  maid.  Allegra  was  glad  Raphael  was  there  to  help 
her  bear  a  meeting  that  brought  up  so  many  poignant 
recollections,  and  to  relieve  her  of  making  conversation 
with  the  poor  wretch.  She  was  afraid  even  to  inquire 
after  the  Frau  Professorin,  lest  pain  lurked  for  him  in 

368 


MODERN   LOVE 

the  question.  But  Pont  inquired  respectfully  after  her 
own  consort,  and  was  accorded  a  conventional  answer. 

"  Well,  I've  been  reading  that  MS.  of  yours,"  broke 
in  Raphael  in  no  tone  of  irony.  "  Almost  thou  persuadest 
me,  Pont,  to  be  a  Pontist,  and  drop  all  this  crude  Spen- 
cerian  evolutionism  that  has  cramped  and  dominated  my 
thinking  of  late." 

"  Nicht  wahr  ?"  said  the  delighted  Professor :  "  these 
Englishmen,  they  cannot  think.  And  you  will  find  me  a 
publisher  ?" 

"  Not  while  the  war  is  on,  I  fear,"  laughed  Raphael. 
"  These  Englishmen,  they  cannot  think — of  more  than 
one  thing  at  a  time.  But  even  in  peace-time,  Philos- 
ophy— "  he  shook  his  head. 

"  I  could  get  it  set  up  myself  for  fifty  pounds.  I  know 
so  many  printers." 

Raphael  checked  a  visible  impulse  of  Allegra's  to  offer 
the  fifty  pounds. 

"  But  that  would  not  help  you  to  live.  And  such,  I 
understand,  is  your  curious  desire." 

"  Ach,  always  this  dreadful  alternative — shall  one 
live  or  one's  ideas  ?" 

"  It's  a  sad  world  for  the  thinker,  I  know.  But  the 
Bread-and-Butter-concept — eh  ?" 

"  If  I  could  open  a  sanatorium,  I  should  make  my  for- 
tune. I  have  a  new  idea,  picked  up  in  this  flat." 

"  Miss  Engelborne  should  have  a  percentage,  then." 

"  Sanatoriums  are  collections  of  cripples  and  consump- 
tives. The  patients  radiate  ill  health,  depress  one  another 
to  death.  In  my  sanatorium  half  the  residents  would  be 
cheerful  young  gentlemen  and  pretty  girls,  radiating 
health.  These  would  get  a  salary  and  board  and  lodging. 
It  would  provide  a  new  profession  for  women — " 

"  And  for  younger  sons  of  the  aristocracy,"  laughed 
Raphael. 

"  We  should  call  it  the  Sunny  Society  Sanatorium,  and 
charge  high  fees.  If  I  could  only  get  up  a  syndicate. 

369 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

We  could  set  them  up  all  over  England — nay,  all  over 
Europe.  There  are  millions  in  it."  Pont  departed,  with 
a  sovereign  from  Allegra,  pending  operations.  Ulti- 
mately a  job  was  found  for  the  Professor,  needless  to 
say  by  the  tireless  and  ingenious  Margaret.  The  con- 
tinued failure  of  Cross  and  Crown  in  London  induced 
Miranda  Grey  to  take  it  out  on  a  provincial  tour,  and 
with  the  same  reliance  on  provincial  ignorance  she  was 
persuaded  to  take  the  Professor  in  her  train  as  acting- 
manager. 

"  But  do  you  understand  the  duties  of  acting-man- 
ager ?"  Raphael  asked  him  in  amusement. 

"  Certainly.  He  has  only  to  work  up  calls,  to  drink 
with  the  local  journalists,  and  to  help  them  with  their 
criticisms,"  said  the  Professor  quite  seriously.  He  had 
ceased  to  have  any  sense  of  the  humors  of  dishonesty. 

One  day  the  sky  was  so  blue  that  Allegra  dismissed 
her  carriage  and  let  Raphael  walk  homewards  with  her. 
But  they  found  it  unexpectedly  windy,  and  Allegra  was 
depressed  by  the  troops  of  school-children  just  let  loose 
from  school,  cheering  boys  and  girls,  who  waved  flags  and 
carried  a  boy  in  an  ambulance  with  a  grewsome,  red-stain- 
ed bandage  across  his  forehead;  thus  far-reaching  were 
the  new  military  influences  set  loose  by  the  swarm  of  war- 
pictures. 

"  The  Cornucopia  would  fare  ill  in  this  generation," 
she  said,  with  a  sigh. 

"  Oh,  Pont  would  have  made  it  bluggy,  if  blugginess 
was  in  fashion.  All  the  children's  papers  run  blood  to- 
day. A  war  isn't  all  waste,  you  see,  as  your  father  thought. 
He  forgot  to  count  emotions  and  excitements,  the  boon 
to  theatres  and  music  halls,  the  patriotic  suppers  after  the 
play,  the  immense  and  universal  thrill  of  the  great  war- 
serial,  to  be  continued  in  our  next  edition." 

"  You  are  a  mocking  fiend." 

"  A  sober,  calculating  machine.  We  cannot  go  on  with- 
out excitement.  Life  is  a  dull  business.  Seventy  years 

370 


MODEKN   LOVE 

is  a  long  time  to  go  on  dressing  and  undressing  one's  self. 
Married  people  put  it  down  to  matrimony,  and  the  unmar- 
ried to  celibacy,  but  it's  life  itself.  Your  father  used  to 
say,  why  spend  money  on  the  Lord  Mayor's  Show,  when  so 
many  are  starving  ?  I  was  a  starving  boy,  but  I  tell  you 
the  Lord  Mayor's  Show  was  worth  more  to  me  than  ten 
dinners." 

"  That  was  romantic,  artistic.     But  this  is  brutal." 

"  The  brute  feels  dim  great  things.  Think  in  how  many 
dull  villages  one-legged  veterans  will  tell  the  tale.  These 
flag-waving  children  are  thinking  less  of  themselves  than 
are  the  countesses  of  your  War  Fund  tableaux  vivants, 
anxious  not  to  be  hidden  behind  the  banners  they  bear." 

"  I  know.     Disgusting." 

"  Why  ?  Mere  healthy  egotism.  'Tis  self-love  that 
makes  the  world  go  round.  I,  the  latter-day  fly  on  the 
wheel,  sit  and  wonder  why  it  goes  round.  Life  has  only 
the  meaning  we  put  into  it." 

"  No,  no,"  she  cried,  struggling  desperately  against  the 
obsession  of  his  diabolical  tolerance ;  "  there  is  a  larger 
meaning  outside  of  us." 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Progress." 

"  You  are  your  father's  daughter — and  a  child  of  the 
Great  Exhibition.  I  see  only  change,  and  plus  cela  change, 
plus  c'est  la  meme  chose."  Some  scraps  of  newspaper 
blew  about  frenziedly  in  the  wind.  "  Ah,  there  you  have 
an  image  of  life — the  whirl  of  dirty  paper  in  the  wind — 
a  futile  pother  informed  by  apparent  significance — see 
how  passionately  the  pieces  chase  one  another.  The  torn 
sentences  printed  on  them  only  add  to  the  ironic  mean- 
inglessness."  A  horse  bolted,  frightened  by  one  of  the 
scraps,  and  Raphael  by  making  a  dart  was  just  able  to 
pull  out  of  the  way  the  rear  child  of  the  military  pro- 
cession. 

"  You  deny  Progress,"  said  Allegra  quietly,  "  yet  you 
preach  the  Beyond-Man." 

371 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  He  is  in  a  minority  of  one  at  the  time.  Androcles 
relieves  the  lion  but  the  thorn  goes  towards  his  crown." 

"  Truth  will  prevail,"  she  said  passionately. 

"  Only  crucified  Truth  can  conquer.  The  masses  will 
only  receive  it  mutilated.  The  allegory  was  profound." 
He  laughed  sardonically.  "  It  is  time  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury dropped  the  shallow  optimism  of  the  eighteenth." 

"  I  thought  you  approved  of  the  eighteenth  century." 

"  In  a  way.  It  was  the  century  when  the  superficially 
true  displaced  the  profoundly  false.  Fizzy  is  the  typical 
eighteenth  century.  In  his  rage  against  the  corruptions 
of  creeds,  he  forgets  that  man  is  born  to  faith  as  the  sparks 
fly  upward.  Nor  in  his  contempt  for  humanity's  self- 
contradictions  does  he  see  that  mankind  must  stand  on 
contradictory  ideals,  and  that  his  own  legs  are  like  the 
legs  of  a  compass  at  a  hundred  and  sixty  degrees.  A 
pure  ideal  is  like  pure  alcohol — a  poison.  Two  contra- 
dictory ideals  mixed  are  a  vivifying  potion.  War  itself 
we  carry  on  with  the  punctilious  etiquette  of  civilization, 
the  Red  Cross  follows  the  red  sword.  Did  you  ever  notice 
in  Margaret's  armory  the  great  stone  clubs  used  by  the 
Plantagenet  bishops  ?" 

"  I've  noticed  stone  clubs — I  thought  they  were  sav- 
age." 

"  So  they  were.  They  were  anticipated  by  the  lake- 
dwellers.  But  they  were  re-invented  to  enable  bishops  to 
fight  without  using  steel." 

"But  why?" 

"  A  Gospel  text  was  tortured  to  prove  they  mustn't 
shed  blood.  A  bashed  head  also  bleeds,  I  believe,  but  they 
did  not  inquire  too  anxiously.  It  is  really  touching  to  see 
mankind  straining  its  leg-muscles  apart  on  slippery  stand- 
ing-places. Less  hypocritically,  though  Hallam  says  more, 
the  Greek  Church  required  the  lustration  of  a  canonical 
penance  from  every  soldier  who  had  shed  the  enemy's 
blood.  Origen  and  Tertullian  admitted  that  Christianity 
and  War  were  inconsistent.  The  Crusades  were  really 

372 


MODERN   LOVE 

due  to  the  victory  of  the  Mohammedan  ideal  of  a  Church 
militant.  l  Our  only  Christian  '  is  herself  an  eclectic. 
From  Christianity  she  gets  her  genius  for  love  and 
self-sacrifice,  but  her  gospel  of  war  and  aristocracy  conies 
from  Feudal  Chivalry,  and  her  taste  for  writing  and  read- 
ing beautiful  stories  and  having  beautiful  furniture  is 
the  mark  of  the  Greek.  From  Bohemia  comes  her  charm- 
ing camaraderie.  Had  she  been  any  of  these  things  in 
isolation,  she  would  have  been  a  monstrosity — like  the  lat- 
ter-day Tolstoi — as  it  is  she  comes  as  near  perfection 
as  humanity  may." 

"  She  is  an  angel,  and  I  think  you  are  in  love  with  her." 

"  Perhaps  I  am." 

"  Is  she  the  Beyond- Woman  ?" 

"  No ;  she  is  just  the  best  of  the  past — a  Christian  with- 
out cant,  a  Bohemian  without  vice,  a  patrician  without 
arrogance." 

"  Then  I  prefer  the  woman  of  the  past." 

"  I  prefer  the  woman  of  the  future." 

"  Who  is  the  woman  of  the  future  ?" 

"  You." 

"  I  ?     But  I  am  as  old-fashioned  as  possible." 

"  Only  in  the  old  fashion  of  beauty  and  goodness.  But 
you  face  life  through  your  own  eyes." 

"  You  just  said  through  my  father's." 

"  No — his  are  still  dazzled  by  his  own  dreams.  I  remem- 
ber being  struck,  when  I  reported  that  famous  speech  at 
Midstoke,  by  his  beautiful  image  of  Peace.  He  looked  for- 
ward to  the  day  when  the  spider  would  spin  its  webs  across 
the  cannon's  mouth.  But  why  is  the  spider  spinning  its 
web?  To  catch  the  poor  fly.  That  cannon's  mouth  will 
still  be  the  theatre  of  war.  Nature  has  woven  life  of  war 
and  love.  We  have  no  option.  You  and  I  may  suffer 
from  hyperaesthesia,  due  to  the  shrivelling  up  of  our  fight- 
ing instincts,  but  we  do  not  blink  the  fact  that  where  in- 
terests clash,  war  must  be." 

"  With  the  lower  creatures,  perhaps :  not  with  men." 

373 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  I  thought  I  convinced  you  that  most  men  were  lower 
creatures." 

"At  the  time.  Later,  I  thought  such  reasoning  would 
justify  slavery  as  against  the  human  brotherhood." 

"  Fine  words  don't  alter  facts.  Is  the  freed  slave  the 
equal  of  the  white  man?  Have  you  never  heard  of  the 
colored  cars  in  the  Southern  States  ?  I  wanted  to  travel 
in  one  when  I  was  there,  thinking  it  wouldn't  matter  as 
I  wasn't  a  Christian,  but  they  wouldn't  let  me." 

"  Then  you  approve  of  sweeping  away  the  Novabar- 
bese,"  she  said,  with  a  swift,  feminine  jump. 

"  It  is  not  my  business,"  he  said  coolly.  "  The  Nova- 
barbese  probably  swept  away  some  other  Barbese." 

"  But  didn't  you  say  you  gave  up  a  brilliant  future 
rather  than  support  Bagnell  ?"  she  answered  hotly. 

"  That  is  my  business."     He  was  too  provoking. 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  To  be  the  tool  of  Bagnell  and  his  Jews !  Let  others 
do  the  dirty  work  of  civilization !" 

"  Just  now  you  had  a  Jewish  sneer  at  the  Christians, 
now  you  are  anti-Semitic." 

"  All  intelligent  Jews  are  anti-Semites — and  all  un- 
intelligent Christians." 

She  could  not  help  smiling.  "  The  more  I  see  of  you, 
the  less  I  know  of  you." 

He  held  up  the  many-headed  pommel  of  his  stick  in 
silent  reminder. 

She  laughed  outright,  and  touched  one  of  the  carved 
ivory  heads.  "  What  does  that  one  think  of  the  war, 
anyhow  ?" 

"  That  canny  old  chap  ?  He  says,  '  It  is  a  traders' 
war.' ' 

"  That's  what  Mr.  Fitzwinter  says.  The  flag  follows 
trade." 

"  But  he  says  it  sneeringly,  endorses  the  Continental 
view  of  British  hypocrisy.  Whereas  here  is  just  the  proof 
of  John  Bull's  sincerity.  Unlike  Russia  or  Germany,  he 

374 


MODEKN   LOVE 

has  had  till  now  no  conscious  scheme  of  imperial  expan- 
sion. He  has  no  general  conceptions  at  all.  And  just  as 
his  '  Freedom  broadens  slowly  down  from  precedent  to 
precedent,'  so  his  Empire  broadens  slowly  down  from  acci- 
dent to  accident.  Adventurers  and  traders  have  built  it 
up — East  India  Companies,  British  Fur  Companies,  Brit- 
ish West  Novabarba  Companies.  He  blundered  into  Aus- 
tralia as  he  blundered  out  of  America." 

"  Father  says  our  Empire  will  end  like  Rome's." 

"  No :  it  is  not  founded  on  military  force,  nor  therefore 
as  mortal.  It  represents  the  unconscious  expansion  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  overwelling  of  its  energies.  Eng- 
land never  advances  anywhere  till  she  is  already  there. 
The  Foreign  Office  accepts  each  new  possession  under  pro- 
test, and  if  she  registers  them  with  blood,  it  is  under  com- 
pulsion." 

"  Then  you  admit  we  don't  aim  at  spreading  civiliza- 
tion." 

"  That  is  the  poetical  veil  necessary  for  the  plain  citi- 
zen at  home.  John  Bull  on  his  island  never  even  sees 
the  people  he  oppresses  or  the  campaigns  he  conducts.  It 
all  comes  to  him  idealized,  almost  as  art.  He  truly  be- 
lieves he  is  spreading  righteousness  and  the  best,  nay 
the  only  possible,  Constitution.  Hence  an  unjust  war  pro- 
duces as  great  a  moral  glow  as  a  just,  much  as  a  false  coin 
does  the  work  of  a  true  one,  so  long  as  everybody  is  taken 
in.  But  the  puzzled  Continent  talks  of  perfidious  Al- 
bion." 

"  But  my  husband  is  aware  the  coin  is  false." 

"Who  knows?" 

Again  he  angered  her.  "  But  he  was  to  be  Broser  the 
Peace-Maker." 

"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  But  not  the  kingdom  of  earth.  Your 
husband  agrees  with  Spinoza:  destroy  whatever  im- 
pedes your  development.  Would  you  were  a  Spinozist, 
tool" 

375 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  But  I  thought  Spinoza  was  a  sort  of  Christ." 

"  Only  in  conduct,  not  in  thought.  Believe  me,  Broser 
is  not  so  black  as  you  paint  him.  I  told  you  women  al- 
ways idealize — for  good  or  ill.  I  catch  curious  twists 
in  him — yearnings  to  do  big  things  for  the  masses,  for  the 
Empire.  If  Nature  has  given  him  a  thick  skin,  it  is  be- 
cause she  intends  him  for  tough  work." 

"  You  will  persuade  me  out  of  my  senses.  You  shame- 
lessly argue  that  Might  is  Right." 

"  Ah,  that  is  this  fellow."  He  pointed  to  a  more 
truculent  head,  like  a  gargoyle.  "  But  Might  and  Right 
are  not  such  opposites.  Right  is  Might  anyhow.  But 
Might  involves  Right,  too.  Might  is  weakness  unless  mor- 
ally federated.  You  cannot  empty  Might  of  morality. 
God  is  not  on  the  side  of  the  biggest  battalions,  unless  they 
are  faithful  to  one  another  and  obedient  to  their  generals. 
And  since  there  will  always  be  big  battalions,  is  it  not 
better  that,  like  the  old  Hebrews,  they  should  think  God 
on  their  side  ?" 

"  Yes,  but  the  old  Hebrews  had  prophets  who  reminded 
them  of  their  backsliding.  The  new  national  prophet  sim- 
ply flatters  his  people." 

"  But  not  only  the  new.  Virgil  flatters  the  Romans  as 
much  as  Victor  Hugo  the  French.  The  Jews  are  the  only 
people  whose  literature  is  one  long  denunciation  of  them- 
selves, and  who  of  these  inspired  libels  made  their  liturgy. 
True,"  he  added  musingly,  "  it  became  the  worship  of 
the  letter.  But  what  a  letter !" 

"  Well,  but  in  the  modern  world,  with  all  these  self- 
flattering  nations,  each  trying  to  push  its  own  wares,  ma- 
terial and  spiritual,  which  are  we  really  to  believe  has  the 
divine  mission  ?" 

"  I  refer  you  to  Nathan  der  Weise  and  Lessing's  fable 
of  the  rings." 

"  You  mean,  whichever  in  practice  makes  most  for  right- 
eousness.'' 

"  Precisely.     Do  you  know  Wordsworth's  lines : 

376 


MODERN   LOVE 

"  England,  all  nations  in  this  charge  agree : 
But  worse,  more  ignorant  in  love  and  hate, 
Far — far  more  abject  is  thine  Enemy. 
Therefore  the  wise  pray  for  thee,  though  the  freight 
Of  thy  offences  be  a  heavy  weight. 
O  grief  that  Earth's  best  hopes  rest  all  with  thee." 

"  But  you  don't  care  about  righteousness." 

"  It  is  one  ideal ;  there  are  others.  But  it  is  the  one 
that  religion  must  concentrate  on,  because  the  others  can 
take  care  of  themselves.  You  enjoin  upon  a  woman  to  go 
to  church  but  not  to  wear  a  pretty  bonnet.  Personally, 
I  agree  with  Victor  Hugo.  Paris  is  Jerusalem.  It  is 
the  one  self-conscious  city.  London — like  the  British  Em- 
pire— is  an  aggregate  of  accidents,  sprawled  out  by  specu- 
lative builders,  to  the  destruction  of  old-world  gardens." 

"  Yes — here  I  am  at  home.  A  thousand  a  year  rent, 
and  not  even  a  tree !" 

"  And  this  is  the  civilization  we  would  spread !  Our 
ships  go  everywhere  and  arrive  nowhere." 

He  would  not  go  in,  and  they  did  not  meet  at  the  flat  for 
a  week.  But  her  next  greeting  of  him  was  excited. 

"  Have  you  seen  the  Quarterly  ?  The  article  on  your 
work!" 

"  Has  Margaret  been  buying  the  Quarterly  ?  What 
waste!  I  never  read  criticism.  Criticism  is  absurd. 
The  critic  cudgels  me,  I  cudgel  him.  Only  Time  can 
show  which  rod  is  Moses's — to  swallow  up  the  other." 

"  But  he  doesn't  cudgel — he  crowns !  He  says  you  are 
truly  a  Poet."  The  word  Poet,  she  found  to  her  surprise, 
still  trembled  with  undertones,  shimmered  with  lights. 

He  quoted : 

"  Last  stage  of  all — 

Where  we  are  frozen  up  within  and  quite 
The  phantom  of  ourselves, 
To  hear  the  world  applaud  the  hollow  ghost 
That  blamed  the  living  man." 

"  But  nobody  ever  blamed  you." 
"  How  do  you  know  that  ?" 

377 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  You  told  me  your  life." 

"  Yes — as  one  shows  a  railway  tour  on  a  map.  I  had 
to  sit  in  the  slow  train — third-class — with  the  stuffy,  snuffy 
people,  and  endure  the  endless  crawl,  and  choke  in  the 
long  tunnels.  You  see  it  all  in  a  whisk.  No,  no  one  will 
ever  really  know  my  life — least  of  all  a  woman." 

"  But  you  have  come  out  of  the  tunnels — the  sunlight 
of  immortality  is  shining  on  you." 

"  True.  That  means  some  money.  The  advantage 
of  writing  immortal  works  is  that  they  last  at  least  your 
own  lifetime.  Otherwise — to  be  one  of  the  D's  in  a  Bio- 
graphical Dictionary,  sandwiched  between  a  twelfth- 
century  bishop  and  a  twenty-fifth-century  aeronaut! 
Oh,  I  am  sick  of  the  little  people  who  compile  the  big 
dictionaries.  The  ants  are  wiser.  Let  us  endure  and 
die  in  silence." 

"  Is  there  nothing  that  could  make  you  happy  ?"  she 
cried  desperately. 

"  Nothing :  save  the  repopulation  of  the  planet." 

"By  whom?" 

"  By  people  I  could  live  among." 

"  By  Beyond-Men  ?  But  then  you  would  have  nobody 
to  despise !" 

"  Ah,  you  despise  me  for  despising." 

"  I  think  you  might  put  a  little  more  love  into  your 
contempt — and  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do." 

"  In  short — I  am  a  prig." 

This  time  she  was  desperate.     "  Yes !" 

He  came  over  and  took  her  hands.  "  And  a  prophet ! 
Confess  that,  too."  They  laughed  and  looked  into  each 
other's  eyes,  and  his  grasp  tightened.  "  So  I  am  to  put 
a  little  more  love  into  my  contempt." 

"  I  don't  say  into  your  contempt  for  me,"  she  said, 
smiling,  and  trying  to  release  her  hands. 

"  Forgive  me,"  he  said,  loosing  them,  "  I  know  not 
what  I  do." 

378 


MODEKN   LOVE 

"  What  you  are  to  do  is  to  sit  down  instantly  and  read 
the  article,"  she  said  sternly. 

He  took  the  Quarterly.  "  I  dare  say  I  should  have 
read  it  when  you  were  gone,"  he  said. 

She  dared  not  be  as  candid,  even  in  self-mockery.  For 
she  suddenly  realized  that  her  repudiation  of  his  hand- 
clasp was  merely  instinctive.  Was  she  about  to  suffer 
even  more  poignantly  than  at  Orvieto  ?  There  it  was 
the  dull  ache  of  emptiness,  the  despair  of  the  blank  void. 
Was  the  void  to  be  filled  with  a  more  positive  pain — the 
consciousness  of  the  great  thing  her  life  had  missed  and 
must  now  deny  itself,  even,  if  found  ?  No,  she  answered 
herself  resolutely.  This  was  but  a  flash  of  recrudescent, 
school-girl  romanticism.  Void  ?  There  was  no  void. 
Since — at  Orvieto — Raphael  and  Margaret  had  come  into 
her  life,  the  void  had  been  filled  up  with  new  duties,  with 
exquisite  friendships. 


•.'• 


CHAPTEE   XVI 
OLD    COMRADES 

IT  was  the  greatest  night  of  Broser's  life.  The  Opposi- 
tion had  tried  to  turn  out  the  Government  on  its  War 
Policy,  but  Broser  was  a  great  Parliamentary  cricketer — 
a  hard  hitter  and  a  terribly  twisty  bowler — and  to-night 
he  had  scored  his  century  not  out,  against  the  nastiest 
balls.  In  the  rival  House  the  poor  old  Earl  of  Yeoford 
had  made  a  duck's  egg.  The  original  British  West  Nova- 
barba  Company  had  been  swallowed  up  by  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  district  turned  into  a  Crown  Colony,  but 
the  rest  of  the  unhappy  country  was  given  over — as  Broser 
put  it — "  to  companies  and  quarrels."  Annexation  was 
pacification,  he  said,  and  the  House  had  applauded,  and 
the  Prince,  listening,  had  applauded,  as  all  England,  and 
all  the  Empire  would  applaud  to-morrow.  All,  that  is, 
except  the  small  minority  who  shared  the  opinions  of  Al- 
legra  or  the  prejudices  of  the  Duchess  of  Dalesbury.  The 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  he  had  repudiated  with  aplomb. 
"  I  agree  with  Lord  Lyndhurst,"  he  said,  shrewdly  en- 
dorsing an  aristocrat's  bill :  "  To  turn  the  other  cheek  is 
unworthy  of  a  great  nation."  He  had  on  a  prior  occa- 
sion endorsed  Lord  Palmerston's :  "  Man  is  a  fighting  ani- 
mal." And  this  breezy  fearlessness,  so  sensitively  in  tune 
with  the  temper  of  the  day,  was  fast  making  Broser  the 
idol  of  Britain.  The  British  working-man,  who  twenty 
years  before  had  plunged  feverishly  into  politics,  reading 
history  and  debating  in  his  clubs,  the  working-man  who 
had  assembled  in  his  thousands  to  cheer  "  Fighting  Bob's  " 
republicanism,  was  now  the  devotee  of  athleticism  and 

380 


OLD   COMRADES 

sport.  Even  the  thinking  classes  had  been  undermined 
by  several  decades  of  Darwinism.  Britain  would  be  safe 
under  "  Fighting  Bob "  it  was  felt.  He  might  have 
changed  his  coat,  but  he  was  always  ready  to  take  it  off. 
No  damned  sentimental  nonsense,  no  wishy-washy  diplo- 
macy, but  a  blow  straight  from  the  shirt-sleeve. 

What  wonder  if  Broser's  boots  trod  on  air,  if  he 
felt  himself  a  storehouse  of  electric  energy,  wires  radi- 
ating from  him  in  every  direction,  charged  with  his  will ! 
The  administration  of  his  department,  the  patronage  at 
his  command,  provided  countless  channels  for  the  passage 
of  his  force.  And  from  all  parts  of  the  world  letters 
and  cables  came  to  him,  and  the  other  great  men  of  the 
earth  reached  out  antenna?  to  him  across  the  seas.  Su- 
premely self-centred,  he  moved  through  the  scenes  of  daily 
life  and  social  diversion  with  complacent  condescension, 
distributed  his  words  and  smiles  as  so  many  pieces  of 
patronage,  became  the  great  actor  who  enters  to  music 
and  goes  out  to  applause. 

But  as  he  trod  the  silent  streets  to-night,  walking  home 
alone  to  quell  his  cerebral  excitement  and  give  himself  a 
chance  of  sleep,  the  springiness  of  the  victor's  step  was  not 
his.  Technical  necessities  had  kept  him  till  the  House 
rose,  and  in  this  supreme  moment  of  triumph  the  cry  of 
"  Who  goes  home  ?"  struck  jarring  notes  from  his  tense 
nerves.  What  home  had  he  to  go  to?  In  the  cool  night 
air,  under  a  sky  of  cloud-tangled  stars,  he  remembered  his 
long-lost  Susannah,  heard  her  heart-cry :  "  I  should  have 
so  liked  to  see  you  Prime  Minister,  Bob."  Ah,  how  she 
would  have  twined  warm  arms  around  him,  sobbed  with 
joy  and  pride,  while  this  intellectual  iceberg  of  an  Allegra 
radiated  freezing  airs  of  scorn  and  hauteur,  unmoved  by 
all  his  achievements.  Why  had  she  not  been  in  the  Gal- 
lery to-night  to  hear  his  great  speech?  They  could  have 
driven  home  together,  nestling  cosily.  Curse  her,  she  took 
after  her  mother.  Marshmont's  wife  was  a  bad  example. 
He  might  have  known  it  was  in  the  blood.  They  thought 

381 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

only  of  themselves,  these  hysterical  minxes,  never  of  the 
great  causes  incarnated  in  their  husbands.  But  he  would 
be  revenged  upon  her,  he  would  no  longer  live  this  loveless 
life.  His  fancy  lingered  on  other  possibilities,  kindled  by 
memories  of  small  dinner-parties  at  which  great  ladies 
had  looked  at  him  with  bright  eyes  and  seductive  smiles. 

He  digressed  to  Westminster  Bridge  to  calm  himself 
by  the  contemplation  of  the  river  with  its  wonderful 
twinkling  reaches.  As  he  turned  back  he  was  conscious 
of  a  shadow  crossing  his,  and  started  nervously.  After 
some  moments  he  became  sure  he  was  followed.  His  heart 
beat  quickly.  A  vague  apprehension  of  assassination 
gave  the  last  touch  to  his  sense  of  importance.  This  ISTova- 
barbese  war  touched  many  interests.  He  must  really  be 
more  careful.  He  grasped  his  stick  tighter  and  turned 
suddenly. 

"  What  the  devil  are  you  following  me  for  ?" 

The  white-bearded  tramp  jumped  back. 

"  Don't  you  know  me,  Mr.  Broser  ?"  he  said  whiningly. 
"  Professor  Pont." 

"  Professor  Pont !"  Contempt  and  reassurance  were 
mingled  in  the  statesman's  laugh,  as  by  the  light  of  a  street 
lamp  he  beheld  the  unreverend,  white-bearded  figure. 

"  I've  called  on  you  many  a  time :  but  they  never  would 
let  me  into  the  lobby  or  through  your  hall  door.  You 
might  have  answered  my  letters." 

"  Did  you  write  to  me  ?" 

"  Half  a  dozen  times." 

"  My  secretary  did  not  mention  it.  Begging-letters  are 
not  passed  on  to  me." 

"  How  do  you  know  they  were  begging-letters  ?"  Pont 
murmured. 

"  I  begged  the  question,"  said  Broser,  with  one  of  his 
neat  Parliamentary  repartees. 

"  Your  old  insight  has  not  deserted  you.  I  was  tour- 
ing with  a  theatrical  company  and  improving  the  business 
every  night,  but  the  stage-manager  grew  jealous  of  me." 

382 


OLD   COMRADES 

"  Ah,"  said  Broser,  dryly ;  "  every  one  finds  you  out 
sooner  or  later." 

"  You  might  help  an  old  chum." 

"  You  have  the  impudence  to  call  me  a  chum !" 

"  I  have  been  out  of  prison  quite  a  long  time  now,"  he 
replied  humbly. 

"  Then  be  thankful  I  didn't  press  my  charge  like- 
wise. As  you  make  your  bed,  my  man,  so  you  must  lie 
on  it." 

"  And  who  made  your  wife's  death-bed — that  I  lifted 
her  to  lie  on  that  night '?"  Pont  shouted  angrily.  "  It  was 
you  that  killed  her." 

"  You  scoundrel !  You  low,  malicious,  criminal  liar !  I 
see  you  are  hankering  after  your  old  prison-quarters." 
Broser  raised  his  stick,  outraged  in  every  instinct. 

"  You  don't  frighten  me.  Unless  you  recognize  our  old 
friendship,  I'll  write  up  the  whole  story  in  the  papers." 

"  You !"  Broser  sneered.  "  Who  would  publish  your 
vaporings  ?" 

"  There's  many  a  paper  that  would  be  glad  to  see  you 
fall.  Nicht  wahr?" 

"  Ha !  There's  a  policeman."  And  Broser  moved 
forwards. 

"  And  the  history  of  your  second  marriage — a  boon  for 
the  society  journals.  What  ?" 

Broser  paused,  startled.  Was  it  possible  any  one  had 
an  inkling  of  his  domestic  secrets  ? 

"  Aha !  I  warned  you  against  that  little  Allegra.  Who 
was  it,  you  told  me,  used  to  call  her  Alligator  ?" 

Broser  caught  him  by  the  throat.  "  How  dare  you  ? 
How  dare  you  mention  my  wife's  name?  You  scum, 
you  foul-mouthed  blackguard,  who  never  knew  what  the 
word  wife  means !" 

"  Let  me  go !"  gasped  the  Professor.  "  The  policeman 
is  turning  his  lantern  on  you." 

It  was  true,  and  in  this  ridiculous  situation  Broser 
loosed  his  bull-dog  grip. 

383 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Give  me  fifty  pounds  and  I'll  save  you  from  a  scandal, 
before  it  leaks  out." 

"  Pooh !     What  scandal  can  you  save  me  from  ?" 

Pont  looked  mischievous  meanings.  "  I  have  told  you 
more  than  I  should  without  a  fee." 

Venomous  thoughts  darted,  poisonous,  through  Broser's 
veins.  But  all  he  said,  calmly,  was,  "  You  know  the  sen- 
tence for  blackmailing." 

"  Give  me  fifty  pounds.  The  day  will  come  when  you 
will  wish  you  had  given  me  a  thousand." 

"  I  never  pay  blackmail." 

"  Then  make  mo  a  bet,"  said  the  Professor  eagerly. 
"  Bet  me  that  a  certain  person  will  not  be  found  at  a  cer- 
tain address  next  Tuesday  afternoon.  If  she — if  the 
person  is  there,  you  pay  me  fifty  pounds." 

Broser  walked  on  in  dignified  silence.  But  in- 
wardly he  was  on  fire  with  rage  and  shame.  He  had  no 
doubt  who  was  the  person  and  what  the  address — had  he 
not  seen  it  on  a  card  in  Orvieto  ? — and  amid  all  his  tumult 
of  mind,  he  was  pleased  with  himself  at  outwitting  the 
Professor. 

"  Five  pounds !"  cried  Pont  desperately. 

"  No ;  but  you  may  call  me  that  hansom  and  I'll  give 
you  sixpence." 

Professor  Otto  Pont  called  the  hansom  and  pocketed 
the  sixpence. 

The  man  who  drove  off  was,  however,  the  unhappier  of 
the  two.  He  who  had  been  so  true,  so  faithful,  so  long- 
suffering!  This  was  his  reward!  To  be  stabbed  in  the 
hour  of  his  triumph ! 


CHAPTER   XVII 
THE    DUCHESS    IN    JOURNALISM 

ON  cooler  thoughts,  the  Duchess  of  Dalesbury  had  not 
been  able  to  remain  at  her  magnanimous  resolve  to 
let  the  Countess  of  Yeoford  accompany  her  to  Court, 
but  she  duly  invited  her  to  Kosmere,  and  Lady  Yeoford 
did  not  fail  to  jump  at  the  opportunity. 

"  We  go  nowhere  now,  my  dear  Duchess,  but  Yeoford 
and  I  will  be  delighted  if  you  and  the  Duke  will  spend 
a  few  days  with  us."  And  the  Duchess  actually  accepted 
the  counter-invitation  and  the  rebuff,  after  the  barest 
attempt  to  save  her  dignity  by  stipulating  that  Mr.  Broser 
should  not  be  in  the  house :  a  stroke  parried  by  the  Count- 
ess's calm  reply:  "Yeoford  never  sees  Mr.  Broser  now." 
She  replied  by  withdrawing  the  Duke,  but  this  was  feeble, 
as  she  had  taken  to  going  out  without  him,  to  the  recluse 
student's  huge  content. 

But  when  after  a  delightful  drive  through  the  terri- 
torial Park,  the  Duchess  alighted  at  the  portals  of  Yeo- 
ford, lo !  there  in  the  hall  stood  her  second  bugbear,  Fizzy ! 
She  felt  trapped,  tricked,  betrayed.  To  be  thrown  into 
the  society  of  The  Morning  Mirror — the  paper  that  had 
so  helped  to  found  Broser's  political  fortunes!  She  had 
told  Fizzy  plainly  what  she  thought  of  him  and  his  dread- 
ful organ,  when  they  met  at  Minnie's  marriage.  It  was 
characteristic  of  the  Duchess  that  she  never  went  out 
of  her  way  to  revise  her  first  impressions — whether  of 
love  or  hate — and  she  still  thought  of  Fizzy  as  the  com- 
panion-in-arms and  journalistic  champion  of  Broser,  even 

385 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

though  she  knew  Fizzy  was  now  left  almost  alone  in  his 
early  Victorian  Radicalism. 

"  Ah,  Duchess/'  said  Mr.  Fitzwinter,  bowing  elegantly, 
"  you  are  just  in  time  to  bid  me  good-bye." 

"  I  am  so  glad,"  said  the  Duchess,  drawing  a  deep 
breath  of  relief. 

Fizzy's  roar  shook  the  antlered  hall.  The  Duchess 
heard  it  without  her  trumpet. 

"  Yes,"  he  went  on,  "  I'm  off  to  Novabarba !" 

"  Oh,  you  are  leavin'  England  altogether.  Better  and 
better !" 

Fizzy  roared  louder  and  louder.  His  method  of  re- 
ceiving her  rebukes  disconcerted  the  Duchess,  but  the 
sight  of  his  luggage  being  borne  into  the  carriage  she  had 
left  preserved  her  good-humor. 

"  What  good  are  you  in  Novabarba  ?77  she  said  amicably. 
"  You  won't  fight." 

"  No,  thank  Heaven,  but  my  wife  insists  on  the  excur- 
sion. We  are  taking  out  nurses  and  blankets  in  my  yacht. 
That  foolish  little  Joan  can't  bear  to  think  of  the  wounded 
soldiers  lying  blanketless  and  untended  in  the  wet  trench- 
es, with  nothing  to  cover  themselves  with,  except  glory." 

"  Glory  without  blankets  is  better  than  blankets  with- 
out glory,"  said  the  Duchess  sternly. 

"  I  am  afraid  the  Rosmere  poor  would  not  agree  with 
your  Grace." 

"  Not  agree  with  me !  Why,  we  have  six  families  in 
mournin'.  Two  mothers  almost  at  death's  door  with 
grief,  yet  proud  of  havin'  given  birth  to  heroes."  Fizzy 
acutely  recognized  the  Duchess's  habit  of  putting  appropri- 
ate sentiments  into  the  mouths  of  her  retainers.  "  Your 
wife  mustn't  think,"  the  Duchess  wound  up  with  resentful 
self-assertion  against  Joan's  aggressive  goodness,  "  that 
all  the  nursin'  is  done  in  Novabarba." 

"  No,"  Fizzy  admitted,  "  any  more  than  all  the  war- 
correspondence.  I  am  glad  I  shall  be  able  to  check  that 
— yes,  and  our  Generals'  despatches,  too." 

386 


THE   DUCHESS   IN    JOURNALISM 

"  Ah !"  the  Duchess  snorted.  "  I  dare  say  you  will  be 
sendin'  over  dreadful  nonsense  to  your  paper." 

"  Oh,  no !  I  leave  it  behind !"  said  Fizzy  airily. 

"  That's  right — leave  all  that  behind  you,"  said  the 
Duchess. 

"  That's  just  what  I'm  doing,"  Fizzy  explained.  He 
produced  a  sheaf  of  printed  slips  from  an  inner  pocket. 
"  My  leaders  for  next  month,"  he  went  on  blandly. 

"  Eh  ?"  The  Duchess  stared.  She  had  no  experience 
of  the  Pontian  paths  of  journalism. 

"  I  can't  trust  my  employees  to  rise  to  the  greatness 
of  the  occasion — or  the  opportunity,"  he  explained  calmly. 

"  But  how  can  you  know  what's  goin'  to  happen  ?" 

"  Oh,  it's  easy  enough,  with  a  bull-dog  like  Broser  in 
power.  He  takes  no  chances." 

The  Duchess  put  up  an  eager  ear-trumpet.  The  "  bull- 
dog like  Broser  "  arrided  her,  was  a  pleasant  foretaste  of 
unexpected  possibilities.  Ah,  of  course.  Joan's  husband 
would  naturally  be  on  Alligator's  side — he  must  have 
turned  against  his  wife's  brutal  brother-in-law.  Moreover, 
she  was  genuinely  fascinated  by  Fizzy's  reduction  of 
prophecy  to  a  profession. 

"  I  should  like  to  see  a  sample,"  she  said. 

Fizzy  glanced  at  his  watch.  "  My  wife  must  be  having 
a  fine  farewell  scene  with  her  mother,"  he  said.  "  Lady 
Yeoford  is  persuaded  we  shall  both  die  of  poisoned  arrows, 
and  nothing  will  convince  her  that  the  arrows  are  obsolete, 
and  that  in  any  case  we  shall  be  out  of  the  firing-line.  The 
real  possibility  of  shells  never  crosses  her  mind — but  we 
gain  nothing  by  that."  He  shuffled  the  proofs  of  his  lead- 
ers card-wise.  "  What  shall  I  deal  you,  Duchess  ?"  he 
inquired. 

"  The  Knave !"  she  replied,  entering  into  his  humor. 

He  cut,  shuffled,  then  selected  one.  "  The  Knave  of 
Trumps !"  he  announced. 

"  Ah !"  The  Duchess  drew  a  breath  of  happy  expecta- 
tion. 

387 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  It  is  for  the  day  he  takes  all  the  tricks  and  becomes 
Prime  Minister !" 

"  Nonsense !"  shrieked  the  Duchess,  turning  quite  pale. 

"  What !  Haven't  you  heard  the  rumor  that  the  Pre- 
mier is  going  to  resign?" 

"  No.     There  is  not  a  syllable  in  The  Times" 

"  You  should  read  The  Morning  Mirror." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say — "  the  Duchess  breathed. 

"  The  rumor  is  in  this  morning's  number." 

"  But  it  can't  be  true." 

"  As  a  man,  I  sincerely  hope  it  is  false.  But  as  a  jour- 
nalist, I  hope  it  is  true.  We  pride  ourselves  on  our  ru- 
mors." 

"  But  at  the  worst,  Broser  can't  succeed  him.  Why, 
he's  quite  a  boy !" 

"  That  is  his  one  qualification.  I  don't  believe,  Duch- 
ess, in  your  theory  that  armies  and  nations  are  peculiarly 
fit  to  be  governed  by  the  decrepit.  The  younger  Pitt  was 
Premier  at  twenty-four." 

"  But  he  had  the  tradition.  Broser  comes  from  the 
gutter." 

"  We  all  end  in  the  grave,  Duchess.  The  gutter  is  good 
enough  to  begin  in." 

"Tut! Tut!  That  is  not  the  point.  Broser  hasn't 
been  in  Parliament  twenty  years !" 

"  All  that  is  vieux  jeu.  When  I  first  went  to  America 
it  took  me  three  weeks."  I 

"  But  he  began  as  a  Jacobin." 

Fizzy  smiled :  "  In  politics,  as  in  business,  honesty  is 
the  slowest  policy." 

"  In  politics,  as  in  business,  dishonesty  is  criminal,"  the 
Duchess  retorted. 

Fizzy  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  Only  the  little  crimi- 
nals are  put  in  prison.  The  big  are  put  in  the  Cabinet." 

"  And  is  that  the  tone  your  wretched  paper  takes  ?" 

"  Heaven  forbid.  That  is  only  my  private  tolerance." 
He  began  to  read  into  the  ear-trumpet : 

388 


THE   DUCHESS   IN    JOURNALISM 

"  The  rumor  we  were  able  to  give  our  readers  so  long  ahead  of 
any  other  paper  turns  out  to  be  only  too  well  founded.  The  Prime 
Minister  has  resigned  and  Mr.  Broser  has  been  summoned  to  Wind- 
sor to — " 

The  Duchess  withdrew  her  weapon  in  spasmodic  self- 
defence.  "  It  will  never  be.  I  won't  torture  myself  by 
hearin'  your  fancies.  Give  me  facts." 

"  As  you  please.  But  that  leader  will  appear  one  day, 
or  I'm  no  tipster."  He  shuffled  the  pack  of  prophecies 
"  Will  you  have  the  one  when  the  war  ends  ?" 

"  Ah — that  is  more  like  reality."  Her  trumpet  wait- 
ed eagerly. 

"  Knave  of  spades,"  said  Fizzy.  "  The  earth  over  the 
dead."  He  began  to  read :  "  '  Once  again  Mr.  Broser  has 
triumphed.  That  blatant  brass-browed  bully — 

"  Eh !  Very  good !"  These  being  the  Duchess's  own 
expressions  she  perceived  a  Junius  come  to  judgment. 

"  '  In  the  passionate  pursuit  of  personal  power — 

"Delightful!" 

"  '  Has  wiped  out  the  independence  of  a  spirited  people, 
whose  valiant — ' 

"  No — no — I  don't  care  about  the  Novabarbese — read 
the  bits  about  Broser." 

Mr.  Fitzwinter  obediently  ran  his  eye  down  the  column. 
"  '  The  annexation  of — ahem — the  Government's — er — 
the  intrigues  of  Sir  Donald  Bagnell—  The  trumpet 
quivered  with  impatience.  "  Ah !  here  we  are.  '  This 
savage  Midstoke  steam-hammer — 

The  Duchess  gave  a  voluptuous  sigh. 

"  '  This  blind  brute  force  that  goes  crashing  through 
all  the  finer  delicacies  of  political  life — 

The  Duchess  inhaled  a  deep  breath  of  satisfaction. 
"  But  should  you  say  '  blind  brute  force  '  ?  His  eye  is 
always  on  the  main  chance." 

"  True." 

"  '  This  hungry-eyed  brute  ' — eh  ?"  the  Duchess  sug- 
gested :  "  leave  out  '  force.' ' 

389. 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Certainly,"  said  Fizzy  in  cheery  acquiescence,  pro- 
ducing a  stylograph  from  his  waistcoat  pocket.  "  'This 
hungry-eyed  brute  who  goes  crashing — '  " 

"  With   elephantine   feet,"    the   Duchess   interpolated. 

"  Eh  ?  Very  good,"  said  Fizzy,  mischievously  mimick- 
ing her.  "  '  With  elephantine  feet,'  "  he  read,  writing 
it  in. 

"  And  the  odor  of  his  native  swamps,"  dictated  the 
Duchess,  pursuing  her  advantage. 

Fizzy  laughed  and  shook  his  head.  "  That's  a  little 
strong." 

"  It  is  very  strong,"  said  the  Duchess,  with  her  usual 
unreceptiveness  to  double  meanings.  But  just  then  they 
heard  Lady  Yeoford's  tearful  voice  in  farewell  admoni- 
tion to  Joan,  and  looking  up  they  saw  her  in  the  gallery, 
with  a  handkerchief  to  her  eyes. 

"  You  are  sure  that  that  will  be  in  The  Morning  Mir- 
ror?" the  Duchess  wound  up  hastily. 

"  As  sure  as  that  I  shall  be  in  Novabarba." 

"Ah!"  Then  with  her  air  of  magnificent  patronage: 
"  Put  me  down  as  a  subscriber." 

"  I'll  put  you  on  the  free  list,"  Fizzy  responded  blithely. 

"  Eh  ?"  The  Duchess  froze.  "  I  am  in  the  habit  of 
paying  for  my  goods." 

Mr.  William  Fitzwinter  smiled  his  suavest  smile. 
"  Contributors  always  get  free  copies,  Duchess." 


CHAPTER   XVIII 
A    RACE    TO    THE    DEATH 

ARGARET  seems  very  happy  to-day — quite  pink, 
she  says,"  said  Raphael,  when,  after  Allegra's  play- 
ing, she  had  left  the  room  to  turn  her  sister.  "  Yet 
she  cannot  hide  that  she  is  now  going  lame  as  well  as 
blind." 

"  She  walks  by  faith,"  Allegra  reminded  him. 

"  That  is  normal.     There  is  something  else." 

"  Perhaps  it  is  that  despite  everything  she  was  able 
to  start  a  new  story  this  morning — so  the  worry  of  having 
to  conceal  her  impotence  from  Kit  is  over." 

"  No ;  I  cannot  help  fancying  you  are  connected  with 
her  pinkness." 

"  Well,  my  visit  to-day  was  unexpected." 

He  shook  his  head :  "  That  would  be  happiness  on  her 
own  account." 

"  You  are  uncanny." 

"  Confess." 

"  Well,  I  went  to  Communion  this  morning,"  Allegra 
admitted. 

"You!" 

"  You  put  up  candles." 

"  That  was  for  Kit." 

"  And  this  was  for  Margaret.  I  knew  she  was  praying  so 
passionately  that  I  might  find  grace  to  resume  my  old 
spiritual  exercises — she  has  enough  anxieties  to  kill  her, 
without  me." 

"  But  that  is  unfair  pressure  on  one — she  will  never 
be  quite  happy  until  I  admit  that  the  Messiah  has  come : 

391 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

I  who  do  not  even  share  the  Jewish  belief  that  He  will 
come." 

"  When  do  the  Jews  expect  Him  ?" 

"  After  Elijah  reappears." 

"How  interesting!"  she  said,  thinking  of  her  old 
name  for  her  father.  "  And  what  is  Elijah  to  do?" 

"  To  bring  peace  into  the  world." 

Allegra  had  a  thrill  of  the  supernatural.  "  If  father 
had  only  succeeded !"  she  murmured. 

Even  had  her  fidelity  to  her  father's  teaching  been 
sapped  by  Margaret's  romantic  imperialism,  or  Raphael's 
realistic  logic — and  it  still  stood  solid — her  mere  heredi- 
tary hypera3sthesia  would  have  made  the  perusal  of  the 
war  news  a  torture.  As  of  yore  she  could  not  read  of 
wounds  without  feeling  them  through  her  own  nerves,  and 
assuredly  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  marks  of  the  crucifixion 
would  have  been  found  upon  her  sainted  person.  Hence' 
she  was  almost  as  sorry  as  Margaret  when  the  Novabarbese 
had  a  stroke  of  futile  success:  she  wished  the  war  to  be 
over  at  a  blow.  And  at  every  fresh  addition  to  Death's 
inventory,  her  instinct  rebelled  against  her  new  friends, 
yearned  towards  her  discredited  father  in  his  feudal  home. 

"  Margaret  has  succeeded  in  making  me  pray  too," 
Raphael  said  with  a  tender  smile.  "  But  I  exacted  a 
usurious  condition  in  return." 

"  What  condition  ?" 

"  Oh,  that  Margaret  shall  not  keep  all  the  fasts.  I 
got  my  pound  of  flesh,  you  see." 

Her  eyes  smiled  but  her  mouth  quivered.  "  And  what 
do  you  pray  ?" 

He  grew  gloomy.  "  That  Kit  may  die  first.  The  same 
prayer  as  Margaret's — the  only  sensible  thing  she  does 
pray." 

"  But  she  doesn't  mean  it  sensibly,  I  fear.  She  is 
thinking,  if  she  were  to  die  first,  of  the  day  or  two  of 
awful  loneliness  for  Kit  before  Kit  would  rejoin  her. 
'  Of  course  God  would  not  let  it  be  verv  long,'  she  says." 

392 


He  struck  his  brow  with  the  ivory  pommel  of  his 
stick.  "  Dolt !  I  have  been  as  gross  as  a  man.  I  might 
have  known  the  supersubtle  Margaret  was  juggling  with 
some  finer  quixotry.  The  other  day  she  hurt  her  head 
badly,  but  would  not  let  the  maid  know  it,  because  she 
would  not  take  an  emotion  from  her.  All  you  have  told 
me  about  your  aunt  pales  before  such  pride  as  that.  I 
shall  never  believe  in  physiognomy  again." 

"  Why  not  ?" 

"  Because  Margaret  has  a  weakish  chin." 

"  So  have  I." 

"  But  you  are  weak — despite  your  fiery  hair." 

"  Yes."  Allegra  sighed.  "  You  see  through  me.  But 
people — even  my  husband — think  I  am  strong,  and  that 
Joan  is  the  sentimental  one.  But  I  have  no  sense  of  my 
personality — it  effuses  at  every  pore — while  Joan  would 
never  forgive  in  a  thousand  years." 

Margaret  limped  in.  She  was  but  the  shadow  even  of 
the  self  Allegra  had  first  known.  But  even  the  limp  could 
not  annul  the  soft  graciousness  of  her  movement,  the  rest- 
ful sweep  of  her  flowing  white  gown,  any  more  than  the 
physical  pain  always  at  the  back  of  her  eyes  could  sap 
their  sweetness.  Ned  frisked  at  her  heels,  quivering  with 
vital  joy,  and  the  room  was  full  of  roses  and  sunshine. 

"  We  were  talking  about  you,"  said  Eaphael,  "  wonder- 
ing why  your  face  contradicts  you." 

"  You  mean  my  green  eyes,"  said  Margaret,  with  mor- 
bid readiness.  "  Yes,  they  worried  me  dreadfully  when 
I  was  a  little  girl,  because  of  the  couplet 

'  Les  yeux  verts 
Vont  aux  enfers.' 

But  when  I  grew  up  and  found  Dante  loved  them  for  Bea- 
trice's sake,  I  grew  reconciled." 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  the  redeeming  vice  of  vanity," 
Raphael  laughed. 

"  If  that  were  all !"  said  Margaret  seriously.  "  But 

393 


THE  MANTLE   OF  ELIJAH 

I  was  a  horrid  impatient  fly-at-your-throat  little  girl,  and 
my  claws  are  only  sheathed." 

"  But  you're  not  the  green-eyed  monster — jealousy." 

"  Wait  till  I  scratch."  Then  her  wan  smile  faded. 
"  Oh,  that  poor  Pont,  thrown  out  of  work  by  profession- 
al jealousy!" 

"  Don't  worry  about  Pont,"  said  Raphael  impatiently. 
He  was  angry  with  the  Professor  for  being  found  out  again 
and  dusking  Margaret's  pinkness.  "  Miranda  Grey  didn't 
put  it  down  to  jealousy,  did  she  ?" 

"  She  hasn't  referred  to  it." 

Margaret,  in  fact,  had  got  a  letter  from  Miranda,  who 
hoped  a  certain  sick  royalty  wouldn't  die,  because  she 
would  have  to  close  her  theatre  for  a  night,  just  when 
Cross  and  Crown  had  "  caught  on."  This  point  of  view 
saddened  Margaret,  but  Miranda's  request  to  have  a  new 
town  flat  found  for  her  restored  her  spirits.  She  was  of 
course  sure  that  Miranda's  mercurial  return  to  confidence 
in  the  play,  her  desire  to  try  it  again  in  the  metropolis,  was 
entirely  unwarranted  by  its  success  in  small  dull  towns, 
but  though  Miranda  begged  for  her  advice  in  the  matter 
she  had  telegraphed  instantly  that  the  idea  was  excellent. 
Margaret  had  no  petty  honesties.  She  saw  that  Miranda 
had  set  her  heart  upon  another  London  trial,  and  there 
was  no  use  in  augmenting  her  risk  by  diminishing  her 
self-confidence. 

"  Well,  you've  done  your  best  for  Pont  anyhow,"  Alle- 
gra  said  soothingly. 

"  But  have  I  ?"  queried  this  ever-surprising  Margaret. 
"  St.  Cyril  says  that  if  we  of  Christ's  Church  followed 
His  teachings  for  one  short  day,  the  whole  world  would 
be  charmed  to  Christianity  by  nightfall.  If  I  were  bet- 
ter, there  would  be  less  jealousy  in  the  world,  and  Pont 
would  be  still  drawing  his  salary." 

"  Monstrous !"  cried  Raphael.  "  You  are  indeed  a 
green-eyed  monster  of  medieval  mysticism.  As  well 
blame  yourself  for  the  poison  in  your  Novabarbese  ar- 

394 


A   RACE   TO   THE   DEATH 

rows.  Or — for  the  matter  of  that — as  well  hope  to  pray 
it  away,  as  you  torture  yourself  to  pray  away  certain  peo- 
ple's sinfulness." 

Allegra  was,  however,  immensely  impressed  by  St.  Cyr- 
il's saying.  "  If  each  thought  I,  I  am  to  blame,  I  can  set 
it  right — "  she  urged. 

"  But  Miss  Engelborne  is  too  good  already,"  he  cried 
angrily.  "  She  has  quite  enough  sorrow  at  home  without 
flying  abroad  in  search  of  new." 

He  had  never  quarrelled  with  her  before  in  Allegra's 
presence. 

"  I  am  flying  abroad  in  search  of  pleasure,"  Margaret 
said  quietly,  "  and  if  you  are  going  Charing  Cross  way, 
you  shall  have  a  lift  in  my  hansom." 

Raphael  sobered  down.  "  A  neat  dismissal,"  he  said 
smiling.  "  But  I  am  glad  you  are  going  out." 

"  Yes,  I  have  to  hunt  for  a  flat  for  a  friend.  It  is  very 
thoughtful  of  her  to  give  me  such  an  excuse  to  be  in  the 
fresh  air.  It  is  good  for  my  eyes." 

Raphael  was  disgusted.  "  A  day  at  the  sea-side  would 
do  you  more  good  than  poking  about  stuffy  flats." 

"  Ugh !    You  know  I  hate  the  sea." 

Margaret  was  smiling,  but  Raphael  remembered  she 
seriously  considered  the  sea  treacherous,  personified  it  as 
wilfully  evil.  The  poet  behind  the  ultra-modern  thinker 
delighted  in  these  twists  of  Margaret's  mind,  and  he  was 
particularly  taken  by  her  banishment  of  coal-scuttles  and 
shovels,  and  whatever  marred  the  pure  beauty  of  burning 
fires  by  the  vulgar  revelation  of  machinery. 

"  Why  don't  you  use  my  carriage,  Margaret  ?"  said 
Allegra,  knowing  the  scanty  resources  on  which  she  mirac- 
ulously maintained  her  own  state  and  her  train  of  pension- 
ers. 

"  You  have  your  own  round."  Margaret  was  unshak- 
able. She  put  on  a  becoming  black-plumed  hat  and  stuck 
a  fresh  sprig  of  syringa  in  her  bosom,  and  they  all  went 
down  the  two  flights  of  stairs  together  and  through  the 

395 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

hall  into  the  broad  sunny  street.     Margaret's  aching  eyes 
lit  up  at  the  sight  of  Allegra's  beautiful  horses. 

"  What  a  pity  we  are  to  lose  them !"  she  cried. 

The  others  looked  at  her  wonderingly. 

"  We  didn't  treat  them  properly  while  we  had  the 
chance.  That  is  why  they  are  being  taken  from  us." 

"  Oh,  you  mean  the  motor-car,"  said  Allegra,  while 
Raphael  smiled  tenderly  at  this  new  outbreak  of  nai've 
mysticism. 

Whilst  he  shared  her  hansom,  she  spoke  critically  of 
the  pictures  at  the  Academy,  and  affectionately  of  the 
dainty  new  edition  of  "  dear  Charles  Lamb's  Letters," 
and  her  thin,  sallow  features  glowed  with  the  joy  of  the 
busy  streets.  Her  one  disapproval  was  for  a  woman  driv- 
ing: an  exercise  "too  manly  for  town."  The  sad  news 
on  an  evening-paper  bill,  "  Murder  of  all  Missionaries  in 
South  Novabarba,"  merely  provoked  the  comment,  "  What 
a  lot  of  missionaries  will  be  attracted  there  now  by  the 
hope  of  martyrdom !"  She  loved  passing  faces,  the  flower- 
girls,  the  shop  windows,  every  touch  of  color  and  quaint- 
ness:  enjoyed  the  surprise  of  a  napping  dog  sprinkled 
by  a  water-cart. 

"  I  envy  you — you  get  pleasure  out  of  everything,"  he 
said. 

"  Those  who  don't  enjoy  life  in  this  world  will  get  pun- 
ished for  it  in  the  next." 

"  You  got  that  out  of  Dante — with  your  green  eyes." 

"  I  don't  remember  it.  But  I  am  certainly  not  with  him 
in  his  '  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  '  theory.  For  me,  to 
remember  past  felicity  is  to  be  happy  over  again;  and 
every  gift  I've  had,  every  unselfish  word  it  has  been 
vouchsafed  me  to  hear,  gives  me  as  acute  pleasure  now  as 
in  its  first  freshness." 

"  She  truly  believes,"  he  thought.  "  How  her  Faith 
shines  beside  that  of  theologians  for  whom  religion  is  a 
metaphysical  mystery,  or  of  fools  for  whom  it  is  a  long- 
drawn  face!  For  her  all  is  love  and  life." 

396 


A   RACE   TO   THE   DEATH 

That  night  his  landlady  brought  up  a  letter  from  her 
to  his  book-lined  study-bed  room.  The  mere  caligraphy 
hurt  him,  for  he  knew  it  meant  a  strain  upon  her  poor 
eyes. 

"  Do  forgive  me  for  having  seemed  rude.  Indeed, 
indeed,  I  know  your  considerateness  for  me,  and  I  ought 
to  have  been  more  patient,  for  God  had  made  me  very,  very 
happy.  But  my  limbs  were  aching  and  my  head  was  mud- 
dled, and  I  could  not  defend  myself.  But  I  do  feel  that 
we  must  all  '  pull  in  '  with  the  Christ.  I  never  try  to 
(  pray  away  '  poison.  I  always  try  to  apply  the  antidote. 
But  if  I  simply  tried  to  help  people  without  reference 
to  His  desires,  I  should  fail,  however  successful  I  might 
seem  to  mortal  eyes.  And  conversely  it  would  be  a  mock- 
ery to  pray  to  Him  without  trying  to  apply  the  antidote 
myself.  But  where  the  poison  is  (like  that  on  these 
Novabarbese  arrows)  one  to  which  there  is  no  earthly 
antidote ;  in  cases  where  my  hands  are  as  tied  as  if  some 
one  was  wounded  by  one  of  them — then  surely  I  may  pray 
without  self-contempt,  for  I  think,  for  I  know,  that  the 
dear  Christ  does  it  all,  if  only  we  care  enough  and  pray 
enough  about  it." 

"  There  is  nothing  to  be  done  with  her,"  he  thought 
gloomily.  "  She  must  die." 


CHAPTER  XIX 
AT    THE    BAZAAR 

ON  the  Tuesday  afternoon — a  stifling  summer  after- 
noon— the  Right  Honorable  Robert  Broser  tore 
himself  away  from  the  Governmental  bench  of  the  stuffy 
Bill-factory,  and  knocked  at  the  door  of  Margaret  Engel- 
borne's  flat.  He  was  like  a  simmering  volcano,  ready  to 
shoot  flames  and  lava.  Since  his  encounter  with  Pont  he 
had  avoided  meeting  his  wife:  the  impulse  to  knock  her 
down  and  thus  cheat  himself  of  a  convincing  exposure 
would  have  been  too  strong.  Ah,  it  was  a  wise,  if  uncon- 
scious uneasiness,  he  told  himself,  that  had  taken  him 
so  swiftly  from  Rome  to  Orvieto.  Oh,  he  would  humble 
her,  reduce  her  to  terms,  this  innocent-faced  idealist ! 

But  a  pretty  girl  had  thrust  forth  an  interrogative 
white-capped  head,  and  he  must  assume  that  impassive 
Parliamentary  manner  reserved  for  the  keenest  pricks. 
He  put  a  square  boot  in  the  doorway.  "  My  wife  is  here, 
Lady  Allegra  Broser,"  he  said,  with  calm  authoritative- 
ness. 

"  No,  your  lordship." 

His  angry  blood  flushed  his  face  and  burned  in  his  veins. 
The  base  intriguers !  "  But  she  is  usually  here  on  Tues- 
days!" he  said. 

"  Yes,  my  lord,  and  on  Thursdays.  But  to-day  she 
couldn't  come — she  has  a  stall  at  the  Great  Bazaar." 

His  heart  beat  "  Fool."  Had  he  not  himself  given  her 
to  understand  it  was  necessary  for  his  sake  to  be  associated 
with  the  princesses  and  duchesses  who  were  providing  for 
the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  soldiers  he  had  sent  out? 
Yes,  she  had  escaped  him.  And  now  she  would  be  warned. 

398 


AT   THE   BAZAAR 

"  Ah,  of  course !  I  forgot.  You  needn't  tell  Mr. 
Dominick  I  called."  He  slipped  half-a-crown  into  her 
hand. 

"  No,  your  lordship.     Thank  you,  my  lord." 

He  turned  back.     "  Mr.  Dominick  is  in  ?" 

"  Yes,  my  lord.     Shall  I- 

"  "No,  no,  don't  mention  my  calling  at  all.     Good-day." 

In  the  street  a  newsboy  was  shouting  "  Great  British 
Victory."  Broser  added  himself  to  the  hustling  pur- 
chasers. "  Strange  I  have  to  buy  my  news,"  he  thought 
as  he  got  into  his  hansom  and  ordered  himself  to  be  driven 
to  the  Bazaar.  "  What  a  good  fillip  for  the  Bazaar !  If 
we  could  only  get  a  success  in  South  Novabarba  now,  and 
avenge  those  bothersome,  meddling  missionaries,  we  could 
safely  stop  the  new  Division  from  sailing  on  Thursday." 

"  Broser !  Bob  Broser !  Hooray !  Bravo !"  Some 
one  had  recognized  him,  and  the  bystanders,  always  tin- 
dery in  those  days,  had  caught  fire.  People  were  as  ready 
to  break  out  in  cheers  as  the  houses  in  bunting.  In  an 
instant  the  hansom  was  surrounded  by  a  huzzahing  mob, 
excited  by  the  conjunction  of  the  good  news  and  the  hero. 
Perspiring  mortals  ran  up  from  all  sides.  Broser's  face 
glowed  in  the  old  schoolboyish  way.  A  young  man  took 
the  horse's  head — it  looked  as  if  there  were  to  be  men  in 
the  shafts.  Broser  had  a  sudden  vision  of  himself  draw- 
ing Allegra's  carriage  at  Midstoke,  and  it  interfered  with 
his  enjoyment.  Confound  these  fools — Raphael  Domi- 
nick would  look  out  of  his  window.  "  Xo,  no,"  he  plead- 
ed, "  I'm  in  a  hurry.  Push  on,  driver."  Then  furious- 
ly, "  Let  go,  I  tell  you,"  and  he  whirled  away  to  a  thunder 
of  cheers. 

He  approached  the  Bazaar  through  another  avenue  of 
cheers  from  the  dense  throng  of  the  poor  and  obscure 
watching  the  passage  to  and  fro  of  the  rich  and  celebrated, 
and  even  among  the  latter  his  course  created  a  buzz,  as, 
feverish  to  find  Allegra,  he  pushed  his  way  through  the 
sweltering  scented  mob,  with  a  chaotic  impression  of 

399 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

flags,  flowers,  gorgeous  kiosks,  chattering  women,  glitter- 
ing stalls.  It  was  indeed  an  orgie  of  femininity,  from 
princesses  of  the  blood  to  the  ladies  who  ruled  society 
on  a  hundred  a  year,  free  of  income  tax.  Duchesses  vol- 
uminously veiled  jostled  actresses  in  piquant  hats  and  ca- 
joling smiles,  and  flamboyant  society  beauties  known  to 
every  bookseller's  window  revealed  themselves  as  realities, 
side  by  side  with  the  shyer  damsels,  the  great  heiresses, 
and  the  beautiful  debutantes,  irresponsible  for  the  vulgar 
paragraphs  of  the  society  quidnuncs.  Broser  brushed  rough- 
ly by  these  amateur  beggars,  with  their  self-conscious  ir- 
resistibility, elbowed  his  way  through  shrill  conversations. 

"  Is  that  the  Duchess  of  Yarrow  ?" 

"  Yes — they  used  to  call  her  Helen  of  Troy  in  her 
young  days." 

"  She  looks  more  like  Helen  of  Avoirdupois  now.  It  con- 
soles one  for  not  having  been  beautiful.  Isn't  that  Broser?" 

"  What  skimpy  dresses !  Call  these  stylish  gowns !  I 
guess  they're  more  like  night-gowns." 

"  You're  too  fresh  from  Paris,  my  dear.  I  like  that  tall 
gray-haired  woman  with  the  black  hat — so  distinguished." 

"  Probably  she  serves  in  a  shop.  Look !  look !  there's 
Broser." 

Broser's  success  in  turning  these  conversations  on  him- 
self did  not  enliven  him.  Journalists  darted  towards  him 
like  spiders,  kodaks  snapped  him  up  as  he  passed. 

"  Hullo,  Bob !  Come  and  have  a  drink,"  and  the  uncle 
of  Polly's  husband,  old  Lord  Winch,  who  was  hobbling 
about  in  spats,  pulled  the  statesman  into  a  bar,  tended  by 
young  noblemen  made  up  excellently  as  barmen  and  not 
noticeably  disguised.  Miranda  Grey,  with  the  air  of  a 
ministering  angel  receiving  the  martyred  saints  in  Para- 
dise, and  proffering  the  cup  of  balm  to  their  tortured 
lips,  mixed  "  Novabarba  Squashes  "  for  infatuated  mill- 
ionaires, while  Lady  Dulsie  Marjorimont,  looking  be- 
witching and  twenty  in  her  black  apron,  neglected  her 
duties  as  one  to  the  manner  born. 

400 


AT   THE   BAZAAR 

"  Where's  Allegra  ?"  Broser  asked  her. 

"  She's  at  the  literary  stall  by  the  fountain." 

"  Have  you  heard  from  the  Fitzwinters  ?"  the  old  lord 
inquired. 

"  No — yes.  Perhaps  my  wife  has.  Let  us  go  and 
ask." 

"  Where's  the  hurry  as  long  as  you're  happy  ?  Let's 
have  another  drink — a  fizzy  one,  he  !  he !  he !  I  suppose 
you're  not  sorry  he's  gone  to  Novabarba." 

"  We  don't  take  Fizzy  seriously,  or  Joan  either.  She'll 
have  a  pleasant  trip — Fizzy's  yacht  is  a  floating  hotel — 
but  as  for  the  good  she'll  do  with  her  staff  of  nurses — 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  Joan  hated  him,  he  knew, 
and  her  trumpeted  enterprise — to  which  The  Morning 
Mirror  had  devoted  shameless  columns — seemed  to  him 
only  to  accentuate  unnecessarily  for  the  public  the  darker 
side  of  imperial  glory. 

Ah!  there  was  Allegra  at  last,  radiant  and  pure-eyed, 
surrounded  by  courtiers  whom  she  had  converted  into 
customers.  They  moved  away  delicately,  but  the  dogging 
reporters  drew  as  near  as  they  dared.  Allegra's  face, 
according  to  the  evening  papers,  "  showed  a  pleased  sur- 
prise." The  reporters  did  not  know  husband  and  wife 
had  not  met  for  days. 

With  a  cold  smile  she  tendered  him  an  autographed  pho- 
tograph of  himself.  "  One  guinea,"  she  said. 

He  gave  her  a  five-pound  note.  "  I  don't  remember 
writing  it."  He  stood  an  instant,  turning  over  the  books 
on  her  stall,  to  keep  his  hands  from  striking  that  saint's 
face,  aureoled  by  its  own  hair. 

"  There's  another  big  British  victory,"  he  said,  un- 
consciously fingering  Raphael  Dominick's  poems.  Al- 
legra perceived  the  reporters,  was  loyally  silent.  Broser 
ploughed  his  way  back  to  his  cab,  digging  his  nails  into 
his  palms. 

"  To  the  House,"  he  said  curtly. 

The  cabman — now  conscious  of  his  fare — showed  his 

401 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

Cockney  cuteness  by  driving  to  Broser's  own  house — the 
well  -  known  corner  house  in  the  Belgravian  square, 
triumphantly  beflagged  like  all  its  neighbors.  Broser 
sprang  out  mechanically.  He  found  an  old-fashioned 
chariot  outside  his  door,  and  his  door-step  occupied  by  a 
smart  groom  colloguing  with  his  butler.  Simultaneously 
he  realized  that  the  Duchess  of  Dalesbury  was  unprece- 
dentedly  calling  on  him,  and  that  his  cabman  was  a  clever 
ass.  Ere  he  had  time  to  act  on  either  discovery,  the  groom 
returned  to  the  carriage,  and  the  Duchess,  touching  her 
bonnet  respectfully  to  her  astonished  menial,  said  to  him 
in  her  harsh  and  now  tremulous  voice :  "  Not  at  home,  your 
Grace."  Then,  handing  him  a  slim  folio,  she  said :  "  Say 
that  I  am  very,  very  sorry  to  find  her  ladyship  out,  and 
that  the  Duke  of  Dalesbury  sends  her  his  new  book." 

"  Yes,  your  Grace,"  gasped  the  man,  still  dazed.  As 
the  Duchess  lifted  her  eyes  she  perceived  Broser,  and  cast 
him  a  look  of  deadly  scorn.  He,  however,  with  his  quick 
brain,  had  grasped  what  had  happened,  and  his  eyes  danced 
with  amusement.  The  Duchess,  he  knew,  had  often  prom- 
ised to  return  Allegra's  visits,  but  being  resolved  not  to 
set  foot  in  Broser's  house,  had  craftily  taken  this  oppor- 
tunity of  Allegra's  advertised  presence  at  the  Bazaar.  On 
her  way  to  Allegra's  house  the  old  lady  had  brooded  with 
such  malicious  gusto  on  her  groom's  sure  report  with  its 
respectful  digital  touch,  "  Not  at  home,  your  Grace,"  that 
she  had  automatically  been  delivered  of  the  reply  with  its 
gesture,  in  her  triumphant  anticipation  of  receiving  it. 

"  How  are  you,  Duchess  ?"  he  said  airily.  Great  as  her 
standing  was,  he  did  not  care  now  whether  she  came  or  not. 
He  would  soon  be  making  peers  himself. 

"  Eh  ?"  She  put  up  her  ear-trumpet.  "  I  don't  think 
I  have  the  pleasure,  sir." 

"  Yes,  Duchess,  we  met  years  ago  at  Midstoke.  You 
liked  my  speech."  The  recollection  of  how  he  had  been 
tickled  by  her  praise  amused  him.  Now,  Princes  hung 
upon  his  word. 

402 


AT   THE   BAZAAR 

"  What  happened  at  Midstoke  ?"  the  Duchess  inquired 
deafly. 

"  You  liked  my  speech,"  he  shouted  into  the  trumpet. 

"  Liked  your  screech  ?  No,  sir.  Nor  your  manners 
either." 

As  her  groom  and  coachman  and  his  own  servants  were 
listening,  with  the  cabman  in  the  background,  Broser 
winced. 

"  My  manners !"  he  thought  hotly.  "  And  what  about 
your  niece's  morals  ?"  But  with  his  wonted  resourceful- 
ness he  said  to  the  ear-trumpet,  with  a  pitying  assumption 
(for  the  lackeys'  benefit)  of  humoring  a  lunatic,  "  I'll 
tell  Allegra  that  you  called." 

"What  I  called  you?     Do!" 

He  lost  the  remains  of  his  temper.  "  Have  you  had  a 
sunstroke  ?  You  ought  not  to  sit  in  an  open — "  But 
the  ear-trumpet  was  jerked  away. 

"  Tell  her  also  that  I  agree  with  her.  Now  I  see  you, 
I  feel  sure  the  war  is  a  crime." 

He  smiled  and  motioned  for  the  trumpet  to  her  ear. 

"  There's  another  great  British  victory,"  he  bawled 
into  it. 

"  I  always  said  you  had  the  devil's  own  luck,"  and  she 
snatched  from  his  mouth  his  means  of  repartee,  and  cried : 
"Home!" 

Broser,  tapping  his  forehead  significantly  to  his  liveried 
critics,  took  from  his  butler's  hands  the  slim  folio. 

"  Five  French  Cathedrals,"  he  read.  "  Good  old 
Duke,"  he  thought  contemptuously,  giving  it  back.  He 
remembered  the  Duke's  mayoralty,  chuckled  over  a  Club 
anecdote  about  an  alderman's  saying  to  him :  "  Dook,  the 
Duchess  and  I  'as  one  taste  in  common.  We  both  love  weak 
whiskey  and  water."  As  he  drove  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons he  was  rather  pleased  at  the  cabman's  mistake.  How 
else  would  he  ever  have  seen  the  Duchess  touch  her  bon- 
net to  her  groom  ?  Then  he  thought  of  Thursday,  and  his 
amusement  vanished. 

403 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE    BRINK    OF    LOVE 

ALLEGRA'S  carriage  had  some  difficulty  in  getting  to 
~L\.  Margaret  on  the  Thursday  afternoon,  as  the  new 
outgoing  Division  of  troops  was  to  march  through  her 
street  on  the  way  to  the  dock,  and  London  had  shut  out 
the  sky  with  flags  and  the  pavements  with  people.  The 
Union  Jack  flew  bravely  from  Margaret's  open  window, 
the  Royal  Standard  flung  its  gay  folds  over  Kit's  never- 
raised  yellow  blind.  The  police  made  a  path  for  Allegra 
through  the  crowd  in  front  of  the  building,  but  would 
not  let  her  carriage  wait. 

"  Kit  is  so  glad  the  soldiers  are  passing,"  said  Mar- 
garet, whose  desperate  desire  to  survive  her  sister  endued 
her  with  miraculous  vitality.  "  She  never  thought  to 
hear  military  music  again.  We  are  pretending  that  an 
Engelborne  is  going  out  to  fight  for  the  Empire,  and  we 
are  so  happy." 

"  Then  she  doesn't  want  my  music  to-day,"  said  Allegra, 
a  shade  unsympathetically. 

"  Perhaps  her  nerves  cannot  bear  too  much  pleasure," 
Margaret  answered  unexpectedly.  "  It  is  a  shame  to  have 
dragged  you  here,  but  I  shall  pretend  your  visit  is  to  me, 
and  in  honor  of  our  soldiers." 

"  Isn't  it  getting  too  noisy  for  her  ?"  Allegra  asked 
evasively.  Spasmodic  cheers  and  snatches  of  song  were 
floating  up  from  the  impatient  sight-seers. 

"  Her  gladness  will  overpower  everything.  And  then 
her  window  is  closed — it  will  all  be  deadened.  I  only 
hope  the  pigeons  will  not  be  too  frightened  to  come  to 
tea." 

404 


"  Another  young  pair  of  lovers  ?" 

"  No.  Real  nameless  pigeons  who  have  lately  tapped 
at  my  window-sill  at  meal-times,  dear  things.  I  hope  the 
soldiers  won't  scare  them  away." 

"  The  pigeon  is  Peace,"  thought  Allegra  with  her  old 
trick  of  symbolism.  "  All  the  tender  interests  of  Peace 
are  banged  and  blared  away." 

The  bell  rang. 

"  Ah,  that  is  Miss  Oxager's  ring.  She  is  one  of  Kit's 
dearest  friends,  just  on  a  visit  from  Australia.  How 
brave  of  her  to  come  through  the  crowd!  I  don't  know 
why  people  are  so  good  to  us.  But  she  will  have  her  re- 
ward— she  will  meet  you,  if  you  will  allow  her.  The 
Australians  are  such  admirers  of  Mr.  Broser,  you  know." 

Allegra  talked  to  the  plump  elderly  lady  with  the 
shrewd  eyes  and  the  lovable  face  till  Raphael  arrived,  heat- 
ed from  his  struggle,  and  Margaret  took  Miss  Oxager  in 
to  Kit. 

They  sat  down  near  the  open  window  and  talked,  the 
liberal  sunshine,  the  festive  atmosphere  of  the  crowd,  the 
firmament  of  flags,  the  singing,  the  whistling,  the  wafts  of 
laughter,  exciting  them  despite  themselves.  Ned  couched 
at  their  feet,  his  ears  cocked  up. 

"  I  seem  to  have  known  you  all  my  life,"  Raphael  said 
suddenly. 

"  And  I  have  known  you  since  your  earliest  '  Fame.' ' 

He  smiled  sadly.  "  Yes.  The  Germans  in  America 
make  their  wedding-cake  in  the  form  of  a  Cornucopia: 
that  is  what  we  should  have  done.  I  ought  to  have  car- 
ried you  off  from  the  Midstoke  Town  Hall.  I,  the  young 
reporter,  and  you,  the  great  Marshmont's  daughter.  A 
newspaper  romance,  indeed !"  He  went  on  more  bitter- 
ly. "  But  after  all,  what  was  Broser  then  ?  I,  too,  might 
have  become  a  politician,  a  patriot — " 

"  You  might  still — you  are  young — we  need  idealists 
in  Parliament.  My  father  has  still  some  influence  in 
his  shire — "  Vague  new  fore-visionings  of  a  Mantle- 

405 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

bearer  flitted  through  her  brain.     Perhaps  here  was  the 
true  Elisha. 

"  Don't  remind  me  that  I  am  young — that  I  may  live 
again." 

"  I  shall.  Why  should  you  not  raise  your  coffin-lid 
and  scramble  out,  like  the  dead  in  Signorelli  ?" 

"  Who  is  to  blow  the  trump  of  resurrection  ?" 

"  Who  ?     Your  better  self." 

"  That  is  you,"  he  retorted. 

"  I  ?" 

"  How  can  you  ask  ?" 

"  I  thought  it  was  Margaret." 

"  Haven't  I  told  you  Margaret  satisfies  my  heart,  not 
my  brain  ?  You  satisfy  both.  I  am  in  love  with  you, 
and  you  know  it."  He  spoke  quite  simply,  making  the 
confession  as  quietly  as  he  had  received  hers  at  Orvieto. 

She,  unembarrassed,  replied  in  the  same  key :  "  If  lov- 
ing me  help  to  resurrect  you,  I  am  glad  of  it." 

"  But  you !     What  do  you  feel  ?" 

"  What  is  the  use  of  asking  that  ?     I  am  bound." 

"Bound?     You  with  your  free  intellect!" 

"  I  was  bound  ere  my  intellect  was  free." 

"  But  now  that  it  is  free  ?" 

"  I  am  bound." 

"  It  is  absurd.  The  you  that  married  Broser  is  not 
the  present  you.  The  girl  that  promised  him  fidelity  is 
dead.  Do  you,  too,  prefer  labels  to  facts  ?" 

"  I  prefer  feelings  to  arguments." 

"  Then  what  do  you  feel  ?" 

"  I  feel  chained  to  my  dead  self." 

"  But  what  do  you  feel  about  me  2" 

"  I  feel  more  sorry  for  you  than  I  have  ever  been  for 
myself." 

"  That  is  love,  Allegra,"  he  said  gravely.  It  was  the 
first  time  he  had  used  her  name;  all  the  air  seemed  to 
vibrate  tremulously  with  the  sound  of  it.  She  was  fright- 
ened. 

406 


THE   BEINK   OF   LOVE 

"  Is  it  more  than  pity  ?"  she  murmured. 

"  Pity  is  akin  to  love.  The  tenderness  in  your  voice 
makes  me  turn  uneasily  in  my  grave — it  is  like  the  spring 
stirring  in  the  grass  overhead."  He  took  her  hand.  "  Al- 
legra,  Angel  of  Resurrection,  I  am  waiting  to  hear  you 
sound  the  trumpet." 

"  How  can  I  help  you  ?"  She  did  not  withdraw  her 
hand ;  her  bosom  heaved.  The  consciousness  she  had  sup- 
pressed now  asserted  itself  volcanically. 

"  Teach  me  to  know." 

"  To  know  ?     You  know  everything." 

"  Except  the  one  thing  which  matters.  I  told  you  how 
I  have  always  been  outside  of  things — ever  since  the  first 
flush  of  youth  was  over.  I  have  looked  on,  as  a  deaf  man 
looks  on  at  a  symphony,  seeing  only  a  mad  gallop  of  fiddle- 
bows  and  a  puflBng  into  brass  tubes.  What  does  it  mean  to 
hear?  or  to  be  lapped  in  music  ?  What  does  it  mean  to  be 
inside  things — to  be  alive,  to  hope,  to  love,  to  dream,  to  be- 
lieve— to  see  children  grow  up  round  one,  to  move  in  a  real 
world,  not  in  a  shadow-mist,  to  row  in  real  water  that  re- 
sists the  oar  ?  This  is  the  privilege  of  every  yokel — why 
should  I  be  cut  off  from  it  ?" 

"  You  cut  yourself  off." 

"  No — not  now.  You  quoted  Goethe  to  me  once.  But 
how  can  I  write  with  love,  if  I  am  loveless?  I  cling  to 
you,  Allegra,  as  a  drowning  man  clings  to  a  boat,  beg- 
ging to  be  taken  in." 

"  But  if  there  is  no  room  ?"  she  said  gently. 

"  Ah,  yes,  Broser  fills  it  all  up."  He  loosed  his  grip. 
"  And  so  you  hack  at  my  hands,  and  I  may  drown." 

"  No — swim  on.  Fight  for  your  life.  The  water  is 
real.  You  will  find  it  sustain  you." 

"  Swim  alone  ?     In  the  great  void  ?     You  are  cruel." 

"  Am  I  crueler  to  you  than  to  myself  ?" 

"  Yes — you  called  me  into  your  life,"  he  said  harshly. 
He  got  up.  "  I  prayed  not  to  be  awakened.  I  tried  not 
to  speak  to  von." 

407 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

She  hid  her  face.  "  You  have  the  right  to  reproach  me. 
I  was  mad,  unstrung,  superstitious.  I  had  prayed  for  a 
Deliverer — and  you  came." 

"  And  now  I  am  to  go.  And  neither  of  us  is  to  be 
delivered  ?" 

"  It  would  not  be  a  deliverance.  Think,  Raphael." 
His  name  came  involuntarily. 

"  I  have  had  enough  of  thinking.     Let  us  act." 

"  And  what  shall  we  do  ?" 

"  The  simple  lyric  thing.  We  shall  live  and  love.  With 
you,  it  would  be  worth  going  on.  Without  you — "  He 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  We  should  be  socially  crippled — we  could  do  nothing 
for  the  world." 

"  For  what  world — yours,  or  Barda's  ?  Or  Ned's  world 
of  scents  ?  There  is  no  world  but  what  surrounds  the  in- 
dividual soul." 

"  But  we  can  help  other  souls." 

"  You  can  help  my  soul.  But  these  lower  species,  howl- 
ing down  there  in  the  street — as  they  howled  when  Nero 
made  a  bonfire  of  the  Christians — what  can  you  do  for 
them  ?  Leave  them  to  their  twaddling  parsons,  their 
sentimental  novelists,  their  jingly  composers.  As  Avell 
try  to  influence  the  four  hundred  millions  pullulating 
in  China.  This  itch  for  interference  is  a  mere  disease. 
You  don't  even  interfere.  You  only  dream  and  senti- 
mentalize about  it.  Haven't  you  found  yourself  out  yet  ?" 

"  You  are  hard  on  me,"  she  said  humbly.  "  Since 
I  have  seen  Margaret's  life,  I  have  tried  to  do  things: 
she  has  made  me  feel  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  stronger 
soul — if  mine  be  the  stronger — to  serve  the  weaker.  My 
husband  is  a  great  force.  I  cannot  move  him  now;  but 
the  war  will  soon  be  over,  and  then,  if  I  am  patient — 

"  And  then  ?  Believe  me,  Allegra,  one  day  of  sunshine 
like  this  diffuses  more  happiness  than  a  season's  acts  of 
Parliament.  The  Power  that  made  the  world  will  mend 
it." 

408 


THE   BRINK   OF   LOVE 

"  But  what  if  our  help  is  necessary  ?" 

"  We  are  too  presumptuous.  Aeons  elapsed  before  we 
appeared  at  all.  Our  habitation  was  prepared  for  us — 
the  scientist  and  the  Psalmist  agree.  The  Creation  wasn't 
referred  to  an  Executive  Committee,  or  no  doubt  Joan 
would  have  been  on  it" 

"  You  paralyze  the  will." 

"  Why  should  you  upbear  the  world  ?  Are  you  Atlas  ? 
No ;  you  are  Allegra, — Allegra,  the  spirit  of  joy.  Be  true 
to  your  name." 

"  I  have  another  name,  Broser.  And  yet  another — 
Marjorimont.  I  must  be  true  to  those." 

"  Ah,  even  the  blot  on  the  'scutcheon  counts !"  he  said 
bitterly. 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  defiantly.  "  I  think  my  father 
underrated  the  inspiration  of  tradition.  Noblesse  oblige. 
Think  of  the  newspapers.  Another  society  scandal !  And 
how  my  father  would  suffer — without  reference  to  'scutch- 
eons !  Hasn't  he  suffered  enough  ?  And  are  there  not 
enough  wicked  women  ?" 

"  Then  it  is  time  for  a  good  woman — " 

"  Think  of  Margaret !  Think  of  Kit !  Would  they  call 
me  a  good  woman  ?"  A  horrid  image  of  the  Duchess 
painted  itself  on  her  retina,  a  stony  statue  of  judgment, 
flinging  away  her  ear-trumpet,  lest  any  plea  for  mercy 
reach  her  ear. 

"  Margaret  and  Kit  do  not  think.  They  accept  the 
world's  morality,  as  they  accept  the  color  of  their  hair. 
Margaret  told  me  she  was  twenty-two  before  she  knew 
there  was  such  a  thing  in  the  world  as  a  '  bad  woman.' 
What  can  she  know  of  the  realities  of  things  ?" 

"  That  is  to  know  the  realities  of  things :  not  to  know 
there  are  '  bad  women.'  The  '  bad  women  '  are  unreal : 
nightmares,  monsters,  chimeras  dire,  that  should  be  swept 
out  of  the  centre  of  consciousness.  Life  tends  to  be  simple 
and  sweet  as  grass  to  be  green  in  the  sun." 

"  That  is  what  /  say :  and  you  remain  chained  to  a  man 

409 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

you  have  ceased  to  love  and  a  woman  you  have  ceased  to 
be." 

"  I  remain  responsible  for  both." 

"  Ah,  you  are  thirteenth  century.  And  I  took  you 
for  twenty-first." 

"  Yes — I  was  older  than  I  looked.     Or  is  it  younger  ?" 

"  You  can  still  jest." 

"  To  prevent  myself  weeping." 

"  Ah,  you  do  feel.  Trust  yourself  to  me,  Allegra.  We 
will  look  down  on  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  Let  me 
be  indeed  your  Deliverer." 

"  You  delivered  me  without  knowing  it.  You  sent  me 
to  Margaret." 

"  And  she  has  asphyxiated  you  with  her  mediaeval  at- 
mosphere! You  listen  to  Margaret — Margaret,  who  is 
ready  to  immolate  all  human  happiness  on  the  altar  of 
faith,  who  defends  every  historic  perversion  of  zealotry, 
the  Inquisition  itself.  And  I  thought  I  had  met  a  modern 
woman.  Ah,  my  first  theory  was  right:  no  woman  will 
ever  face  life."  He  looked  at  her  sardonically.  "  How 
I  envy  Broser  his  talons!  These  are  the  men  to  whom 
women  yield  everything." 

"  You  are  cruel  to  me,"  she  said,  paling. 

"  You  hack  at  my  hands,"  he  repeated.  "  You  drive 
me  back  to  drown." 

Her  heart's  tears  flooded  her  eyes  at  last. 

"  Why  is  life  such  a  tangle  ?  I  meant  you  to  help  me, 
and  now  I  have  hurt  you." 

Her  tears  softened  him.  "  No ;  you  have  only  left  me 
as  I  was,  after  just  a  peep  into  the  world  of  meaning.  O 
for  Margaret's  light — pains  and  all!  Only  the  darkness 
is  unbearable." 

"  I  shall  never  forgive  myself.  But  I  thought  you 
would  be  content  to  be  my  friend.  After  all  we  are 
souls — " 

He  froze  again.  "  Conversation  with  a  woman  is  im- 
possible." 

410 


THE   BRINK   OF   LOVE 

"  Yes,  when  the  Beyond-Man  sinks  to  a  Man." 

"  I  am  tired  of  being  a  Beyond-Man.  It  is  so  lonely." 
He  took  his  hat  and  stick.  "  I  was  foolish  to  live  on." 

"  You  were  not  foolish,"  she  said,  terrified.  "  Live  on 
for  my  sake.  I  wish  to  feel  you  strong,  believing  in  good. 
Sing  on — I  won't  have  your  voice  stilled." 

He  laughed  mockingly.  "  Spare  me  platitudes.  You 
will  next  tell  me  to  be  manly  and  join  the  troops  for  Nova- 
barba.  But  there  are  severer  forms  of  manliness.  Good- 
bye. We  shall  not  meet  again." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?"  Her  hypersensitive  nerves 
already  felt  a  dozen  forms  of  suicide. 

"  Don't  be  afraid ;  I  shall  not  use  the  conventional 
threat.  I  am  only  going  back  to  my  books  and  my  thoughts. 
Probably  in  my  own  room  the  sunshine  will  look  less 
mocking.  Life  is  very,  very  long,  but  one  must  bear  it. 
Contempt  of  the  world  once  meant  love  of  the  divine.  I 
have  not  even  that  to  fall  back  on.  If  only  I  could  give 
my  life  to  Kit  or  Margaret.  But  they  must  die  and  I 
must  live.  It's  a  somewhat  ingeniously  muddled  uni- 
verse, nicht  wci.hr?  as  Pont  would  say.  You  and  Pont — 
my  first  illusion  and  my  last." 

He  turned  towards  the  door.  "  But  why  are  we  not 
to  meet  again  ?"  she  said  desperately. 

"  Ah,  a  woman  can  never  face  a  fact.  Evasive,  elusive, 
she  loves  to  play  with  possibilities,  to  dodge  realities." 

A  wilder  cheering  rose  from  the  street. 

"  The  soldiers  are  coming,"  said  Allegra.  "  You  will 
not  be  able  to  get  by.  You  had  better  wait  till  they  pass." 

Raphael  paused  uncertainly. 

"Bravo,  Broser.  Hooray  for  Fighting  Bob!"  The 
cheers  grew  more  distinct.  Allegra,  looking  out  of  the  win- 
dow, saw  a  hansom  bowling  along,  specially  respected  by 
the  mounted  police,  who  had  now  stopped  all  traffic. 

"  See  the  conquering  hero  comes, 
Sound  the  trumpet,   beat  the  drums." 

411 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

The  mob  commenced  to  sing. 

"  Surely  mj  husband  is  not  heralding  the  procession," 
Allegra  murmured. 

Raphael  came  to  her  side.    "  Yes — he  is  stopping  here." 

A  delirious  mob  surged  round  the  arrested  hansom; 
Broser  was  scowling,  disgusted  by  this  second  contretemps 
of  popularity.  Raphael  looked  at  Allegra. 

"  Now  you  must  stay  with  me,"  she  said. 

Raphael  stuck  his  hand  out  of  the  window  and  tore  the 
Union  Jack  from  its  fastenings. 

"  Bravo !  Bravo !"  he  shouted,  waving  it  frenziedly. 
Then  joining  in  the  chorus  with  a  melodious  voice  that 
startled  Allegra  as  much  as  his  behavior,  he  sang,  with 
the  ornate  flourishes : 

"  Myrtles  wreathe  and  roses  twine, 
To  deck  the  hero's  brows  divine." 

Broser  looked  up  and  saw  him  and  Allegra  side  by  side. 


CHAPTEE   XXI 
THE    BRINK    OF    DEATH 

RAPHAEL  DOMIKECK  waved  his  flag  amicably  at 
Broser  as  he  entered  the  room. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Broser  ?  Delighted  to  meet  you 
again  under  such  auspicious  conditions." 

Broser  gave  him  a  haughty  stare.  To  him  Raphael 
appeared  like  some  under-clerk  of  his  Department  caught 
disporting  himself  in  office  hours,  yet  paradoxically  backed 
up  by  the  Premier. 

"  What  are  you  doing,  Lady  Allegra,"  he  said  bluntly, 
"  in  Mr.  Dominick's  flat  ?" 

"  It  is  not  Mr.  Dominick's  flat,"  she  cried,  and  then  bit 
her  tongue  for  having  answered  his  insolent  question. 

"  And  at  Orvieto  it  wasn't  your  room !  A  singular  co- 
incidence. May  I  ask,  sir,  why  I  find  my  wife  here  ?" 

"  Don't  answer  him,"  cried  Allegra.  "  What  right 
has  he  to  follow  me?" 

"  Perhaps  he  wished,  like  you,  to  see  his  soldiers  from 
this  excellent  point  of  vantage.  Will  you  take  a  chair 
at  the  window,  Mr.  Broser  ?" 

"  I  am  more  likely  to  throw  you  out  of  it." 

"  On  the  heads  of  your  worshippers !  Oh,  fie !  Fighting 
Bob  must  not  take  himself  so  literally.  It  would  be  kinder 
to  make  them  a  speech.  Listen!  They  are  still  calling 
for  you.  Do  make  them  happy.  The  ironic  gods  are  in 
form  to-day,  but  that  would  complete  my  enjoyment  of 
the  situation." 

"  This  persiflage  will  not  save  you  from  an  explana- 
tion, sir,"  Broser  roared. 

413 


THE   MANTLE    OF   ELIJAH 

"  Gently,  gently,  sir.  Your  head  is  not  out  of  the 
window." 

Margaret  limped  in.  Allegra  drew  a  half-sob  of  re- 
lief. "  Miss  Engelborne,"  she  said,  "  my  husband  has 
come  to  see  me  home  through  the  crowd.  The  carriage 
wasn't  allowed  to  wait." 

Margaret  bowed  and  smiled.  "  It's  an  ill  wind  that 
blows  nobody  any  good.  My  flat  will  always  be  honored 
to  have  had  a  visit  from  Mr.  Broser.  I  hope  Lady  Alle- 
gra has  told  you  what  an  Imperialist  I  am !" 

Allegra  could  have  stabbed  her  for  stupidity  with  one 
of  her  own  Indian  daggers.  She  knew  that  Margaret  was 
dying  to  bring  in  her  Anglo-Imperial,  Miss  Oxager,  but 
she  spitefully  forbore  to  suggest  it.  Polite  conversation 
ensued,  mainly  on  the  probabilities  of  a  speedy  subju- 
gation of  Novabarba.  It  was  one  of  those  comedy  truces 
that  interrupt  tragedy,  and  the  final  touch  was  given  to 
it  when  the  shining  seraph  brought  in  tea  and  pent  the 
storm  in  a  teacup.  Raphael  helped  Broser  to  sugar.  The 
exquisite  and  bitter  laughter  he  had  professed  to  derive 
from  the  social  panorama  was  his  in  full  measure  as  he 
watched  the  silent  fume  of  this  great  creature,  this  mon- 
ster of  will-power,  through  whose  small  self-seeking  a 
great  Empire  was  being  made  bigger,  as  a  railway  is 
extended  for  the  world's  benefit  and  the  shareholders'  per- 
centage. And  he  thought  of  Kit  lying  in  earthly  dark- 
ness and  heavenly  light  under  the  same  roof  that  sheltered 
this  arch-materialist :  the  crucified  girl  and  the  complacent 
Csesar. 

When  Margaret  went  back  to  Miss  Oxager,  Raphael  took 
the  word.  "  Let  us  have  no  more  of  this  farce,  Mr.  Broser." 

Broser  gave  him  a  baffled  scowl.  Pie  had  gathered  by 
now  whose  home  this  was,  and  why  Allegra  was  there. 
But  he  was  only  the  angrier  at  being  put  in  the  wrong 
when  he  knew  he  was  in  the  right. 

"  Still  your  scowl  is  not  unwarranted — for — I  am  in 
love  with  your  wife." 

414 


THE   BRINK   OF   DEATH 

Broser  glared  dumfoundered. 

"  But  your  wife,  alas !  is  not  in  love  with  me." 

Broser  found  his  voice.  "  My  wife  will  at  once  put  an 
end  to  your  acquaintance." 

Allegra  flushed.  "  I  shall  certainly  choose  my  own 
friends." 

"And  lovers?" 

Allegra's  color  ebbed  and  flowed. 

"  Come,  come,  Lady  Allegra,"  Broser  went  on.  "  You 
promised  to  remember  my  dignity." 

"  Remember  mine,  please." 

"  Don't  let  us  bandy  words.  I  am  not  going  into  subtle 
ties.  Things  are  always  plain  enough." 

"  To  the  superficial,"  Raphael  added  dryly. 

"  I  hope  there  isn't  anything  below  the  surface,"  Broser 
retorted.  "  I  must  insist,  Lady  Allegra,  that  this  room 
and  this  gentleman  see  you  no  more."  He  offered  her 
his  arm  with  imperious  deference.  Allegra  drew  back. 

"  I  am  afraid,  Mr.  Broser,"  said  Raphael,  with  a  gentle 
smile,  "  we  are  fellow-sufferers." 

"  You — !"  And  Broser,  growing  apoplectic,  made  a 
motion  as  if  to  strike  him.  Allegra  stepped  between  them. 

"  Don't  take  him  seriously.  He  cannot  afford  to  make 
a  scene.  It  is  the  hour  of  his  star." 

Raphael's  detached  impersonal  view  of  things,  which 
had  so  often  irritated  Allegra,  maddened  her  husband. 
"  If  I  horsewhipped  you,  sir,"  he  said,  in  a  low  tone  of 
impotent  fury,  "  it  would  discredit  me  in  nobody's  eyes." 

"  Discredit  you  ?  It  would  be  the  crowning  stroke  of 
your  career.  Physical  force  is  at  a  premium  to-day.  It 
would  show  you  did  not  merely  send  out  your  mercenaries 
to  fight.  I  confess  I  should  itch  to  try  this  many-headed 
stick  myself,  if  it  were  not  for  the  presence  of  the 
lady  whose  life  you  have  darkened,  but  who  still  clings 
to  you  with  a  blind  superstition  and  a  wifely  devotion  that 
I  have  failed  to  sap." 

"  You  confess  it,  you  shameless  blackguard !" 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  Ah — you  recognize  a  brother.  It  is  so  rarely  I  meet 
a  man  of  my  own  mettle,  devoid  like  myself  of  morals 
and  religion,  that  but  for  the  pain  we  are  giving  your 
wife,  I  should  rejoice  in  the  prolongation  of  this  unique 
conversation." 

Broser  gasped.     "  Is  this  a  lunatic,  Allegra  ?" 

"  Please,  don't  say  you  believe  in  anything  outside  your- 
self," Raphael  entreated,  "  that  you  recognize  any  law 
but  your  own  will.  Don't  let  us  play  the  game  on  con- 
ventional lines.  Why,  we  might  as  well  start  talking  of 
a  duel.  There  is  certainly  a  goodly  choice  of  weapons." 

Broser's  eye  followed  Raphael's  and  his  face  paled  be- 
fore Margaret's  bristling  armory,  at  command  of  this 
maniac.  "  Come,  Allegra,"  he  said  peremptorily. 

The  faint  strains  of  military  music  were  borne  to  their 
ears. 

"  Ah,"  said  Raphael,  "  here  come  the  men  you  are 
sending  to  death.  Show  yourself  to  them  at  the  window. 
Let  them  cry  morituri  te  salutamus — must  I  translate  it 
for  you  ? — we  salute  thee,  Caesar,  we  who  are  about  to  die." 

Allegra  sprang  to  the  window  and  shut  it  down.  Over- 
strung by  the  two  scenes  she  had  passed  through,  every 
nerve  quivered.  "  I  don't  want  to  hear  them,"  she  cried 
hysterically.  "  If  you  knew  how  the  thought  of  them  stabs 
me,  Robert.  Can't  you  spare  them,  Robert  ?  Do !  Oh, 
you  must !" 

"  How  can  you  talk  so  wildly — and  before  a  stranger !" 

"  But  you  can  end  it  all — do  end  it  all,  I  know  you 
can.  The  Wovabarbese  are  suing  for  peace." 

"  I  am  surprised  at  you.  Come !"  He  seized  her  arm 
rudely.  She  was  trembling  in  every  limb. 

She  tore  herself  from  his  grasp  and  fell  sobbing  on 
the  couch. 

Broser's  eyes  protruded  semi-ludicrously — his  expres- 
sion when  thwarted  by  trifles. 

"  People  must  die  for  the  good  of  their  country,"  he 
said  harshly.  "  Novabarba  is  worth  the  price." 

416 


THE   BRINK   OF   DEATH 

Raphael  snatched  an  arrow  from  the  wall.  "  One 
touch  of  this  poisoned  Xovabarbese  arrow,  and  you  die 
for  the  good  of  your  country." 

Broser  retreated  towards  Allegra 's  couch.  "  Come 
away,  Allegra,  from  this  madman  of  yours."  He  lifted 
her  to  her  feet. 

Raphael  smiled  sardonically.  His  strange  eyes  shone. 
"  A  madman  who  has  not  even  the  sanity  to  kill  you.  A 
madman — yes,  a  man  who  once  dreamed  of  a  righteous 
world,  and  then,  cheated  of  that  vision,  dreamed  yet  again 
— of  a  woman's  love.  A  madman  indeed !  Not  for  such 
as  I,  these  wonderful  women,  but  only  for  such  as  you, 
tramplers  through  life.  You  enfold  the  angels  with  your 
gross,  carnal  arms,  while  we  shadows — must  be  content 
with  shadows.  You  are  a  great  man,  Robert  Broser,  you 
will  live  in  history,  and  I  am  only  a  poor  poet  whose  name 
is  written  in  water;  but  this  woman  was  meant  for  me. 
She  knows  it  in  her  soul,  but  she  leaves  me  to  die  alone." 

"  No,  no.     I  would  have  you  live." 

"Alone?" 

"  Alone.     Even  as  I." 

"  But  you  are  not  alone." 

"  No — I  have  not  even  my  loneliness  to  myself.  How 
I  envy  you !  You  are  alone  to  live  and  dream  and  think. 
You  do  not  belong  to  any  one." 

"  Nor  you :  no  soul  can  own  another." 

Broser  waved  a  hand,  as  brushing  him  away.  "  My 
wife  knows  her  duty." 

"  Her  duty  is  to  herself.     Nothing  else  is  real." 

"  My  duty  to  myself  is  my  duty  to  my  bond,"  Allegra 
pleaded. 

"  There  speaks  the  voice  of  savage  ages.  I  ask  you 
to  be  free — in  his  very  face — and  come  to  me,  in  the 
light  of  day." 

"  You  devil !"  Broser  gasped.  "  You  would  poison 
her  soul,  as  you  would  poison  my  body." 

"  I  am  speaking  to  Lady  Allegra." 
417 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  I  cannot.  Our  world  is  so  full  of  evil.  No  one 
would  understand." 

"  Then  I  will  no  longer  play  at  being  dead." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  she  breathed. 

"  I  will  have  the  courage  to  die." 

Allegra  was  darting  towards  him:  Broser  held  her 
back.  This  time  the  mocking  smile  was  his.  "  A  pretty 
gentleman !  To  kill  himself  in  a  lady's  apartment — with 
a  dying  girl,  too,  I  understand,  on  the  premises." 

The  arrow  drooped  in  Raphael's  hand.  Then,  with 
a  muttered  "  Good-bye,"  he  walked  rapidly  doorward. 

"  Stop  him !  stop  him !"  she  cried.  "  Don't  let  him 
take  it  away.  Its  prick  is  fatal." 

Broser  sneered.     "  He'll  not  hurt  himself." 

Allegra  ran  to  the  door.  Raphael  was  in  a  mad  mood, 
she  felt.  His  freak  with  the  flag  had  shown  her  a  new 
Raphael.  He  was  capable  of  anything.  "  Throw  it 
down,"  she  implored. 

"  No.     Good-bye." 

She  plucked  at  it  suddenly.  He  wrested  it  back.  She 
uttered  a  cry.  The  point  had  pricked  her  upper  arm  near 
the  shoulder.  Raphael,  terrified,  let  the  weapon  drop. 
A  great  hush  fell  over  Allegra's  soul. 

"  Are  you  hurt  ?"  said  Raphael.  His  face  was  ashen ; 
his  voice  and  his  limbs  trembled. 

Her  voice  was  low  but  steady.  "  It  ran  into  my  arm." 
There  was  an  instant  of  weird  silence. 

"Good  God!"  Broser  shrieked.  "You  have  killed 
my  wife." 

"  No,  no ;  it  was  my  own  stupidity."  She  was  dazed : 
her  voice  sounded  unnatural  to  herself. 

Broser  began  rolling  up  her  sleeve.  "  But  something 
can  be  done,"  he  cried.  "  There  is  only  a  little  red 
swelling — and  a  few  drops  of  blood." 

"  Nothing  can  be  done,"  she  said  simply.  "  It  takes 
five  minutes  to  begin  to  work)  and  then  I  shall  die 
quickly." 

418 


THE   BRINK   OF   DEATH 

He  rang  the  bell  in  a  frenzy.  "  Where  is  this  person  ? 
She  must  know  what  to  do." 

"  Perhaps  cauterizing,"  said  Raphael  hoarsely. 

The  servant  hurried  in,  respectfully  interrogative,  an 
irritation  in  such  a  crisis. 

"  Where  is  Miss  Engelborne  ?"  Broser  cried. 

Oh,  but  this  was  incredible !  Neither  Broser  nor  Raph- 
ael yet  realized  that  Allegra  could  die,  though  cold  sweats 
were  breaking  out  all  over  their  bodies,  and  their  hearts 
were  thumping  like  pistons.  Only  Allegra  felt  that  death 
was  upon  her,  with  the  unexpectedness  of  everything  in 
life.  There  came  oddly  into  her  brain  scenes  from  "  The 
Vision  of  Mirza,"  which  had  so  impressed  her  in  child- 
hood :  the  multitudes  in  pursuit  of  bubbles  falling  through 
the  trap-doors  in  the  bridge.  Well,  was  it  not  best  to  slip 
suddenly  out  of  the  procession  ?  What  was  there  for  her 
on  the  long,  long  bridge  with  its  threescore  and  ten  arches  ? 
Only  the  hovering  passions  and  harpies.  Perhaps  in  a 
few  minutes  she  would  be  on  the  shining  islands.  Then 
the  horror  of  the  coming  agony  began  to  crawl  and  creep 
through  her  veins  like  a  myriad  live  things.  The  shining 
islands  were  blotted  out — she  could  think  only  of  the 
racking  voyage,  not  of  the  peaceful  harbor. 

Summoned  by  the  mystified  maid,  Margaret  dragged 
herself  into  the  room :  its  dazed  terror  communicated  itself 
subtly  to  her.  Her  eye  fell  first  on  Raphael,  who  was 
stooping  to  pick  up  the  arrow. 

"  You  are  poisoned,  Raphael !"  Neither  he  nor  she 
noticed  that  she  called  him  thus. 

"  Nothing  so  fortunate,"  he  groaned,  throwing  the 
arrow  behind  the  piano. 

"  It  is  I,  Margaret,"  said  Allegra. 

"You!" 

"Don't  fool  about!"  Broser  burst  forth.  "Where  is 
the  nearest  doctor ?  Quick!  quick!" 

But  Margaret  had  sprung  upon  Allegra's  bared  arm 
like  a  tigress :  her  mouth  was  at  the  wound. 

419 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

"  No !  No !"  Allegra  fought  with  her,  pushed  her 
face  away  with  the  other  hand.  "  You  shall  not.  You 
have  Kit  to  live  for." 

Raphael  pulled  Margaret  away.  "  That  is  my  business. 
This  death  is  mine.  Give  it  me." 

But  Allegra  beat  him  off  desperately : 

"  No,  no ;  let  me  alone.     It  is  the  best  way  out !" 

"  Die  in  agony !  You !"  Raphael  gasped.  But  he  could 
not  prevail. 

"  Where  is  the  nearest  doctor,  I  ask  you  ?"  Broser 
roared  at  Margaret. 

"  He  could  not  come  in  time,"  Margaret  moaned. 

"  But  he  shall  come  in  time." 

"  He  could  do  nothing,"  said  Allegra. 

"  But  he  shall  do  something.  There  must  be  something 
to  inject,  to  swallow —  Where  is  he  ?  I'll  go  myself. " 

The  cheers  they  had  not  noticed  forced  themselves  now 
through  the  closed  window.  The  music  was  coming 
nearer. 

"  Nobody  could  get  through  the  crowd,"  said  Raphael 
hopelessly. 

Broser's  pallor  became  ghastly.  He  flung  open  the 
window — nothing  but  flags  above,  black  myriads  of  heads 
below.  "  Good  God !"  he  cried,  the  full  horror  beginning 
to  grip  him.  "  Is  my  wife  to  die  like  a  rat  in  a  hole  ? 
Damn  this  mob!" 

"  They  have  come  to  see  your  soldiers,"  said  Allegra, 
with  all  the  bitterness  of  death.  "  God  wills  that  you 
shall  see  me  die  by  a  Novabarbese  arrow — like  my 
brother." 

Broser  thrust  his  head  out  farther.  "  Is  there  a  doc- 
tor down  there  ?"  he  shouted. 

A  few  heads  turned,  looked  up. 

"  Is  there  a  doctor  down  there  ?" 

"  Broser !  Bravo,  Bob !  Hooray  for  Broser !"  The 
crowd  took  up  the  cheer. 

"  Silence !     Silence !"  he  cried  hoarsely. 

420 


THE   BKINK   OF   DEATH 

"Silence!     He's  going  to  speak !     Speech!     Speech!" 

"  Is  there  a  doctor  among  you  ?" 

"  Three  cheers  for  Fighting  Bob !  Hooray  !  Hooray ! 
Hooray !  For  he's  a  jolly  good  fellow !"  The  song  was 
taken  up  all  down  the  line:  it  flew  to  meet  the  martial 
music  that  grew  momently  louder  and  nearer.  Broser 
saw  the  bear-skins  and  helmets  on  the  horizon.  He  felt 
like  a  cockle-boat  before  a  tempestuous  ocean.  His  face 
grew  apoplectic.  He  turned  back  to  Allegra . 

"  Great  God !"  he  cried,  choking.  "  To  see  you  die  and 
not  be  able  to  help  you !" 

His  agitation  smote  tenderness  for  him  through  Alle- 
gra's  daze,  and  the  softening  thrill  unloosed  a  flooding 
wave  of  self  -  commiseration.  O  God,  the  pity  of  it ! 
To  have  had  such  vast  opportunities  in  the  world — health, 
wealth,  birth,  beauty — and  to  go  down  to  the  darkness  a 
miserable  failure !  A  phrase  began  buzzing  in  her  brain. 
"  To  Allegra  at  Forty,"  "  To  Allegra  at  Forty."  Ah,  it 
was  well  she  had  read  that  letter  prematurely.  Its  sen- 
tences started  repeating  themselves: 

"  But  if  you  despair  of  your  own  happiness,  remember, 
dear,  there  is  always  the  life  of  service.  .  .  .  Perhaps  you 
have  fallen  by  the  way,  into  the  slough  of  selfishness." 

Yes,  indeed,  she  had  "  fallen  by  the  way."  Oh,  if 
God  would  only  give  her  another  chance!  But  no,  that 
could  not  be.  Already  she  felt  the  pricking  in  her  veins, 
the  buzzing  in  her  ears.  She  saw  herself  in  the  dear  old 
house  of  her  girlhood,  writing  the  letter  to  herself,  and 
great  tears  began  to  trickle  down  her  white  cheeks. 

Margaret  was  on  the  floor,  groping  for  the  arrow  be- 
hind the  piano  pedals.  "  If  it  should  not  be  a  poisoned 
one!"  she  whispered. 

"  Is  there  any  doubt  of  it  ?"  Raphael  breathed,  his  heart 
going  off  at  a  frenzied  gallop. 

She  drew  forth  the  arrow.  "  I  cannot  tell.  I  mixed 
them  up." 

"  O  God,  let  it  not  be  a  poisoned  one !"  Raphael  ut- 

421 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

tered  the  first  spontaneous  prayer  of  his  manhood,  and 
even  as  he  did  so  he  felt  it  was  the  most  futile  and  absurd 
prayer  imaginable — nay,  his  very  synonym  to  Margaret 
for  vain  petitioning.  The  arrow  was  poisoned,  or  it  was 
not. 

Margaret  sprang  up  wildly.  "  Allegra !  Allegra ! 
God  will  not  let  you  die.  It  must  be  a  harmless  arrow, 
it  must  be." 

"  But  I  feel — I  feel  the  poison  beginning  to  work." 

Margaret  put  her  arms  round  her.  "  No,  no ;  God  will 
not  let  you  die." 

"  It  would  have  worked  by  now — it  is  ten  minutes," 
cried  Raphael. 

"  It  is  not  three,"  said  Allegra,  her  dreadful  calm  re- 
turning. "  I  looked  at  the  clock." 

"Two  minutes  more!"  said  Raphael  huskily.  "Must 
we  wait  two  eternities  more  ?" 

"  Don't  worry  any  more,  Robert.  I  have  only  two 
minutes.  Give  me  your  hand." 

Margaret  released  Allegra  and  motioned  to  Raphael  to 
follow  her.  They  stole  outside,  to  join  in  heart-broken 
prayer  and  wordless  hope ;  Raphael  seeking  as  humbly 
as  Margaret  to  "  pray  away  poison." 

Broser's  look  was  like  a  trapped  beast's.  Impotence 
was  terrible  to  him.  Allegra  let  her  head  fall  on  his  shoul- 
der. This  beautiful  creature — this  unbared  white  arm 
— to  be  plucked  from  him,  to  go  down  to  corruption — im- 
possible !  But  he  had  felt  the  same  when  Susannah  was 
being  taken,  and  yet  she  had  been  taken. 

"  Try  to  remember,"  Allegra  said  brokenly,  "  that  I 
was  not  so  bad  to  the  children.  I  think  they  will  be  a 
little  sorry." 

"  Yes,  I  will  forgive  you,  Allegra.  I  will  think  only 
of  our  happy  years." 

"It  is  beginning  to  burn..  Oh,  my  poor  father!  My 
poor  father !" 

The  soldiers  were  passing  at  last.  The  music,  the  cheers, 

422 


THE   POISONED   ARROW 


THE   BRINK   OF   DEATH 

the  sunshine — was  she  to  leave  this  intoxicating,  beautiful 
world?  Farewell,  blue  sky!  Good-bye,  dear  streets! 
She  ran  to  the  window.  Heaven  was  a  flutter  of  flags, 
and  earth  a  sea  of  handkerchiefs.  How  joyously  went 
the  rhythm  of  the  tune  that  should  be  melancholy: 

"They  dressed  me  up  in  scarlet  red, 

And  used  me  very  kindly, 
But  still  I  thought  my  heart  would  break 
For  the  girl  I  left  behind  me." 

How  they  marched,  the  brave,  strong  men,  the  swing 
of  their  movement  like  the  tramp,  tramp  of  one  gigantic 
foot.  But  the  spirited  music  changed  to  a  dolorous  wail 
of  bagpipes.  The  Highlanders  passed,  bare-legged,  with 
stern  set  faces,  that  softened  as  women  cried  to  them  or 
reached  out  a  hand  to  touch  them. 

Oh,  the  soldiers!  The  great  strong  soldiers,  going 
down,  out  of  the  sun,  breaking  the  hearts  of  their  dear 
ones!  And  she — she  who  had  been  so  strong,  so  sure 
of  good  and  truth,  so  keen  to  right  every  wrong  and  wipe 
away  every  tear — her  life  had  ended  in  nothing. 

"  O  God !"  she  cried.  "  Take  me  for  these  at  least !" 
She  turned  to  her  husband — the  tears  rolled  down  his  face. 
She  clung  to  him :  "  Bob !  Bob !  Remember  we  were  to 
make  an  end  of  war.  Save  these  men.  Let  me  die 
happy." 

"  Yes,  yes." 

"  No,  no ;  swear  to  me  you  will  make  peace  before  these 
men  reach  Novabarba." 

"  Is  that  in  my  hands,  my  poor  darling  ?" 

"  Yes.  Swear  to  me.  In  another  moment  the  agony 
will  grow  fierce.  Then  I  shall  not  be  able  to  plead,  then 
close  your  ears  to  my  shrieks — but  now — " 

"  I  swear  to  you,  dearest." 

"  Thank  you,  Bob."  She  kissed  him.  He  clasped  her 
closer,  but  she  slid  to  her  knees  and  waited  for  death. 

The  clock  ticked  away,  second  after  second,  and  still  the 

423 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

soldiers  went  by,  each  regiment  with  its  own  marching 
music,  environed  by  the  same  cheers. 

Presently  Margaret  tapped  at  the  door,  and  then  she 
and  Raphael  glided  in.  Their  eyes  met  in  a  hope  more 
agonizing  than  their  fear.  Another  minute  ticked  itself 
off,  each  tick  like  the  drop  of  cold  water  on  the  head 
of  the  tortured  prisoner.  Raphael  could  endure  it  no 
longer. 

"  You  feel  nothing !     You  are  in  no  pain !" 

Allegra  uplifted  a  tear-stained,  bewildered  face.  "  I — 
I — just  before  it  seemed  to  burn." 

"  Seemed !  Ah,  thank  God !"  he  cried  hoarsely.  "  It 
is  your  morbid  fancy.  I  hypnotized  you  by  saying  it 
was  poisoned.  The  arrow  was  harmless." 

"  But  I  felt — I  am  sure — "  Her  eyes  blinked  at  life 
as  at  a  sunburst. 

"  No,  no !  I  understand.  It  is  your  old  hyperaes- 
thesia.  Your  nerves  always  work  out  suggestions  of  pain. 
You  feel  nothing,  I  tell  you." 

"  Can  God  be  so  good  to  me  ?"  she  whispered. 

"  Ah,  how  good  God  is  to  me !"  said  Margaret.  Save 
for  the  stranger's  presence  she  might  have  burst  into  tears. 
But  the  long  habit  of  lonely  endurance  and  proud  reticence 
bore  her  unbroken  even  through  this  moment  of  im- 
measurable relief.  Broser  wiped  the  cold  perspiration 
from  his  brow. 

"  Come,  get  up,"  said  Raphael.  "  Wake  from  your 
nightmare."  He  moved  to  lay  a  hand  on  her  shoulder. 

Broser  stepped  between  them.  "  Down  on  your  knees, 
Mr.  Dominick,  and  thank  your  Maker  you  have  been  saved 
from  murder."  He  helped  Allegra  to  her  feet,  and  she 
fell  sobbing  upon  his  shoulder. 

O   Mr.  Dominick!"  said  Margaret,  "will  you  ever 


forgive  me?" 
u 


Forgive  you  ?" 
"  I  should  have  destroyed  the  arrows." 
"  You  have  perhaps  saved  my  life  by  them,"  he  said 

424 


THE   BRINK   OF   DEATH 

quietly.  "  Good-bye,  Lady  Allegra.  I  shall  go  back  to 
Italy.  Try  to  forget  all  my  madness  of  to-day." 

She  raised  her  head  and  met  his  sad  eyes.  "  I  shall 
remember  only  that  you  wished  to  take  death  from  my 
veins.  I  shall  always  regret  I  could  not  give  you  life." 

"  You  have  given  me  life.  I  have  had  a  real  moment. 
I  have  choked  in  the  deeps — in  real  water.  I  have  been 
inside  things,  if  not  through  love,  through  pity  and  ter- 
ror." 

"  The  pity  and  terror  were  for  me,  and  therefore  the 
higher  love — the  love  that  asks  nothing  and  gives  all." 

He  saw  that  she  was  to  give  all  to  Broser  once  again, 
but  the  perception  only  lifted  him  to  higher  levels  of  ten- 
derness and  abnegation. 

"  Good-bye,"  he  said  again.  "  I  have  been  inside,  and 
I  know  that  I  have  known  nothing." 


CHAPTEE   XXII 
REACTION 

DEATH  -  BED  repentances  should  be  followed  by 
deaths.  Life  tries  them  too  hard.  It  took  but  a 
few  days  of  living  to  make  Allegra  repent  of  her  repent- 
ance :  of  the  fit  of  exaltation  in  which  she  had  given  her- 
self back  to  Broser  in  loving  reconciliation,  in  which  she 
had  sought  to  obey  Margaret's  doctrine  of  the  sacrifice  of 
the  morally  stronger  to  the  morally  weaker.  But  how  if 
such  stooping  did  not  uplift  the  lower,  merely  degraded 
the  higher  ? 

Margaret  had  given  herself  to  Kit — but  she  had  sacri- 
ficed only  the  body.  She  remained  herself  in  soul. 
Whereas  to  live  amicably  with  Broser,  one  must  flatter  his 
moods,  applaud  his  self-satisfaction.  She  loathed  her- 
self for  having  once  again  abandoned  herself  to  wifely 
duty.  Raphael  Dominick  was  right:  no  soul  could  pos- 
sess another.  She  was  no  more  Broser's  chattel  than  she 
could  be  Dominick's.  Broser  was  intolerable,  impossible, 
fatuously  wrapped  in  conceit  and  success.  This  renewed 
intimacy  with  him  only  demonstrated  more  clearly  how 
they  had  grown  apart.  She  found  him  worse  than  in 
his  Republican  days,  for  all  his  finer  manners.  It  was 
not  that  he  made  no  effort  to  end  the  war,  despite  his 
promise,  contenting  himself  with  predictions  of  the  speedy 
destruction  of  the  enemy,  it  was  not  that  he  swam  exult- 
ant on  the  tide  of  victory,  it  was  the  man  himself.  His 
politics  might  be  as  defensible  as  Raphael  argued  or  Mar- 
garet believed,  but  she  would  not  take  even  the  Millen- 
nium at  his  hands.  Oh,  if  love  is  blind,  hate  sees,  and 

426 


REACTION 

she  saw  every  little  vulgarity,  every  touch  of  studied  im- 
pressiveness,  every  grain  of  coarseness.  Even  neutral 
details  hurt  her — his  very  way  in  dressing  of  stamping  his 
feet  into  his  boots.  He  seemed  to  be  stamping  on  every- 
thing— on  her  ideals,  on  her  father,  on  her  girlhood,  on 
her  woman's  heart. 

Well,  indeed,  might  he  stamp  a  masterful  foot.  Al- 
legra  had  come  back  to  him,  the  Prince  had  at  last  invited 
himself  to  his  house,  and  its  mistress  had  hastened  to  send 
out  universally  coveted  cards  for  the  great  reception  that 
would  wind  up  and  crown  the  season.  A  galaxy  of  emi- 
nent Anglo-Imperials  would  lend  special  color  to  the  occa- 
sion. Another  British  victory,  too — clearly  the  penulti- 
mate— was  come  to  shed  its  forward-reaching  lustre 
over  this  night  of  nights.  The  detachment  that  had  just 
sailed  would  probably  land  in  a  conquered  country,  and 
with  a  little  more  luck  the  annexation  of  Novabarba  might 
even  coincide  with  the  visit  of  the  Prince  to  whom  he  was 
presenting  a  province. 

The  night  of  this  newest  victory,  filled  with  after-din- 
ner elation,  he  proposed  to  Allegra  an  impromptu  jaunt  to 
a  great  music-hall,  urging  he  needed  the  relief  of  some 
lightness  and  gayety  after  all  this  public  strain.  They 
could  sit,  hidden  in  the  depths  of  a  box.  In  truth  he 
itched  for  the  roar  of  the  People's  approbation — not  the 
People  of  his  young  days,  the  sad-eyed  overladen  ox 
turning  at  length  to  gore  the  oppressor,  but  that  jolly 
music-hall  public  with  which  he  was  as  popular  as  "  the 
great  Vance,"  and  contact  with  which  always  gave  him 
a  benevolent  sense  of  being  father  of  his  people.  To-night 
lie  longed  to  receive  his  own  self-satisfaction  back  again 
from  that  mighty  multiplier — from  all  those  thousands  of 
hearts  and  throats  and  hands. 

Allegra  hesitated,  then  decided  not  to  be  a  kill-joy. 
Poor  Broser,  poor  "  great  blonde  beast,"  as  Raphael  had 
defined  him,  let  him  gambol  and  relax  as  he  knew  how. 

"  I  couldn't  risk  hanging  about,"  he  laughed  carelessly, 

427 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

as  she  took  her  place  beside  him  in  the  brougham.     "  I've 
wired  for  a  box." 

A  suspicion  that  what  he  could  not  risk  was  being  in- 
cognito, awoke  within  her  a  feeling  of  absolute  pity  for 
his  limitations. 

But  the  progress  of  their  brougham  was  slow.  Grati- 
fied pugnacity,  mixed  more  creditably  with  jubilance  over 
the  relief  of  a  long-beleaguered  garrison,  had  sent  the 
town  mad.  Their  house  had  been  serenaded  by  the  mob 
ere  they  drove  off,  and  now  rollicking  foot-passengers, 
wrapped  grotesquely  in  flags,  and  sporting  portrait-but- 
tons and  rosettes,  stole  the  roadway  from  the  vehicles, 
shrieked  through  whistles  and  tin  trumpets,  squeaked  and 
banged  in  fife-and-drum  bands.  Omnibus  roof  called  to 
omnibus  roof,  deep  to  deep.  Pennants  fluttered  in  lieu 
of  whips  from  the  tops  of  hansoms,  and  four-wheelers 
crawled  along,  decorated  with  bunting  and  aglow  with 
Japanese  lanterns.  Every  horse,  every  dog  even,  was 
pranked  with  patriotic  emblems.  Little  boys  staggered 
along  under  standards  heavier  than  themselves.  Little 
girls  flaunted  it  as  nurses  in  mob-caps.  Young  men 
organized  in  great  disorderly  companies  and  waving  fools' 
bladders  made  sudden  ugly  rushes,  by  which  pickpockets 
profited.  Gangs  of  professional  roughs  snatched  off  the 
passers'  hats  and  threw  them  skyward,  filching  their 
watches  while  their  eyes  were  with  their  hats.  Endless 
processions  of  girls  and  young  women  tickled  the  men 
with  peacocks'  feathers,  or  squirted  them  with  dirty  water, 
or  pelted  them  with  confetti,  or  swished  them  with  cat 
o'-nine-tails  of  colored  paper,  and  at  each  provocation  the 
men  kissed  them.  From  every  public-house,  gay  with 
flags  and  the  tricolor  ribbons  of  the  barmaids,  came  beery 
choruses.  Nor  were  the  Clubs  of  the  elect  less  hilarious, 
elderly  cynics  vying  with  prim  young  dandies  at  the 
blazing  bow-windows.  Even  the  art-students  had  thrown 
off  their  British  frigidity,  were  parading  with  Parisian 
paroxysms  side  by  side  with  reputable  citizens  flinging  off 

428 


REACTION 

a  life-time  of  villadom.  Casual  red-jackets  were  shoulder- 
ed and  deified;  the  very  Salvation  Army,  the  butt  of  the 
streets,  was  received  with  sudden  respect,  because  it  march- 
ed in  military  fashion  and  banged  a  sounding  drum.  And 
not  only  had  Allegra  this  sense  of  a  city  given  over  to  flags 
and  illuminations  and  music  and  cheers  and  revelry  and 
rowdyism,  she  knew  that  joy-bells  were  pealing  and  bon- 
fires flaring  and  torch-light  processions  passing  through 
all  Britain,  nay,  that  the  whole  great  Empire  rang  with 
jubilance,  bloomed  with  bunting,  palpitated  with  festive 
fires.  At  first  her  eyes  filled  with  tears ;  the  physical  con- 
tagion of  all  this  delirium  was  irresistible.  But  soon 
every  nerve  quivered  under  the  brutal  jar.  It  was  almost 
a  relief  to  her  to  think  of  the  quiet  dead  in  Novabarba. 
For  this  Comus  crew  the  Novabarbese  had  been  expunged, 
that  this  civilization  might  spread  over  their  happy  hunt- 
ing-grounds. 

Ah,  she  understood  the  French  Revolution  now.  How 
soon  the  diked-off  sea  of  savagery  stole  back  over  the  hard- 
won  tracts  of  tenderness.  How  easily  Broser  might  have 
led  a  British  Revolution,  had  he  been  a  little  bolder  and 
honester;  how  easily  the  barrel-organ,  as  Raphael  put  it, 
would  have  played  Republican  tunes.  Broser  should  have 
struck  in  that  moment  of  his  fiery  youth  when  he  held 
the  masses  white-hot  under  his  hammer.  He  might  have 
been  President  instead  of  Premier. 

"  I  told  you  a  war  would  shake  'em  up,"  he  laughed, 
ignorant  of  her  train  of  thought.  "  I  really  think  Ger- 
many ought  to  be  content  without  any  concession  for  its 
petty  Novabarbese  rights." 

"  Why  ?"  she  murmured. 

"  Look  at  the  profit  the  German  factories  must  have 
made  turning  out  all  these  millions  of  British  flags  and 
military  toys  and  portraits  of  our  heroes.  I  hear  that 
they  positively  can't  keep  pace  with  our  nursery  demand 
for  toy  soldiers.  Oh,  it  has  shaken  us  up,"  he  replied 
joyouslv. 

429 


THE   MANTLE    OF   ELIJAH 

"  There  seems  to  be  somebody  badly  shaken  up,"  she 
replied  bitterly. 

"Where?" 

"  There — in  that  ambulance  wheeled  by  two  policemen. 
Oh,  there  will  be  many  crushed  and  trampled  upon  to- 
night, I  fear.  Do  see  what  has  happened." 

"  I  dare  not  get  out — I  might  be  mobbed." 

"  Then  I'll  get  out." 

"  You're  as  bad  as  Joan,"  he  grumbled,  as  he  sprang 
out,  pulling  his  hat  over  his  face. 

"  Drive  on,"  he  said,  jumping  in  again.  "  It's  only  a 
woman  being  taken  to  the  workhouse."  He  resettled  him- 
eelf  comfortably  in  his  cushioned  seat,  his  hand  in  his 
wife's,  pleasantly  conscious  of  her  warmth  and  beauty. 

"  Only !"  she  repeated.     "  But  why  on  a  stretcher  ?" 

"  She  was  found  senseless  from  hunger  in  her  garret — 
nobody  knew  she  was  starving." 

Allegra  turned  white.  "  A  flag  of  triumph  waved  over 
the  ambulance,"  she  said  mordantly. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  with  satisfaction.  "  The  very  cradles 
and  perambulators  blossom.  There  isn't  a  disloyal  heart 
in  Britain." 

"  Except  your  wife's,"  she  longed  to  shriek. 

At  one  point  the  carriage  must  needs  come  to  a  stand- 
still. A  great  crowd  was  hooting  and  throwing  stones 
at  a  shuttered  house. 

"  Why,  it's  Joan's !"  Allegra  cried  in  alarm. 

"  Ah,  that's  why  Fizzy  ran  off  to  ISTovabarba,"  Broser 
laughed. 

Allegra  drew  her  hand  from  his:  the  memories  that 
scene  brought  up  were  too  bitter. 

The  music-hall  was  the  street  over  again.  The  vast 
audience  packed  to  suffocation  rose  to  its  feet  with  a  roar 
of  welcome  as  the  illustrious  couple  entered  the  bower  of 
flags  and  roses,  which  in  less  exciting  times  was  a  box. 
Allegra  saw  she  had  indeed  been  lured  into  sharing  his 
pompous  publicity.  "  Rule  Britannia  "  and  "  God  Save 

430 


KEACTION 

the  Queen  "  rang  from  thousands  of  throats,  nor  could  the 
performance  proceed  till  the  mad  waving  mob  had  sung 
"  For  he's  a  jolly  good  fellow."  Yes,  this  was  what  her 
husband  had  done.  This  was  what  his  Republicanism  and 
Universal  Peace  had  come  to.  He  had  engineered  an 
outburst  of  feudal  romanticism  unknown  since  the  days 
of  the  Tudors.  The  Army,  the  Xavy,  the  Old  Nobility, 
the  Queen,  God  bless  her,  God  bless  them  all.  The  air 
palpitated  with  tremulous  affection  for  all  he  had  set  out 
to  destroy.  Every  school-boy  longed  to  be  a  soldier.  Rifle 
drill  invaded  the  gardens  of  the  ancient  universities. 
Britain  had  been  rebarbarized ;  Novabarbarized,  as  The 
Morning  Mirror  put  it.  England  was  on  the  highroad 
to  join  the  military  despotisms  of  the  Continent.  Verily 
the  wheel  had  come  full  circle. 

On  the  homeward  drive  she  only  said,  "  I'll  not  go 
with  you  to  the  Thanksgiving  Service  at  St.  Paul's."  And 
he,  misunderstanding, 

"  Oh,  but  the  music  is  sure  to  be  good !" 

He  was  going  out  to  dinners  this  week,  stealing  hours 
from  the  dying  session,  tasting  his  triumph,  rolling  under 
his  tongue  the  compliments  on  every  menu.  And  Allegra 
was  waxing  hourly  wearier  of  the  phantasmal  whirl  and 
the  fashionable  cynicism.  This  London  society — with  its 
cosmopolitan  chatter  and  its  cycles  of  migration,  with  its 
habits  more  rooted  in  pleasures  than  in  duties — seemed  to 
her,  in  Raphael  Dominick's  phrase,  to  "  go  everywhere 
and  arrive  nowhere."  A  saving  remnant  redeemed  it, 
perhaps,  but  the  flamboyant  section,  alternating  private 
immorality  with  public  showiness,  and  fluttering  fever- 
ishly round  the  turf  and  the  Stock  Exchange,  offered  an 
ironic  spectacle  of  civilization's  climax  to  the  Novabarbese 
under  civilization's  broom.  At  one  dinner  a  brilliant 
barrister,  her  neighbor,  explained  to  her  that  the  law 
was  more  exciting  than  Monte  Carlo.  "  All  such  a  toss- 
up.  You  can  never  tell  if  your  client  is  lying  to  you. 

431 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

And  even  when  you  feel  sure  the  other  side  is  in  the  right, 
you  can't  be  sure  it  '11  strike  the  judge  and  jury  as  it  does 
you."  And  the  next  night  Mrs.  Whindale,  an  aged  satir- 
ist of  her  own  sex,  famous  for  her  dogmatic  utterances 
in  print,  confessed  to  her  that  she  was  approaching  the 
grave  without  the  faintest  assurance  on  any  of  the  great 
questions.  "  I  started  life  with  a  full  equipment  of  an- 
swers. Now  I  ask  myself  in  vain :  What  am  I  ?  Where 
did  I  come  from  ?  Whither  do  I  go  ?  What  is  right  ? 
What  is  wrong?"  And  the  poor  old  woman  kept  back  a 
tear.  But  why  then  was  she  so  hard  on  the  new  woman- 
hood, Allegra  thought;  on  the  young  generation  putting 
forth  anxious  feelers,  in  the  travail  of  a  new  evolution  ? 

Ah,  it  was  time  for  a  new  revelation,  she  felt.  The  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  had  failed  to  roll  the  stone  up  the 
Mount.  The  stone  had  rolled  back  now  with  a  vengeance. 
Paganism  had  thrown  oif  the  mask,  and  lolled  once  more 
at  flower-crowned  tables  in  festal  garments,  its  veins  full 
of  youth  and  lust  and  wine.  But  for  her,  Allegra,  it 
was  horrible  to  eat  these  dainty  foods,  to  sip  these  spark- 
ling wines,  the  soul  looking  on  joyless,  self-conscious  of 
futility:  one's  own  skeleton,  felt  through  the  evanescent 
flesh,  sat  at  every  feast.  She  was  falling  more  and  more 
into  this  habit  of  aloofness,  surveying  herself  from  with- 
out, like  a  figure  in  a  play.  Perhaps  she  had  caught  it 
from  Raphael  Dominick.  At  any  rate  it  served  to  facili- 
tate the  living  with  Broser.  On  their  way  home  from  din- 
ner she  again  made  him  stop  the  carriage.  This  time  it 
was  an  old  female  scarecrow  chivied  from  a  street  bench 
by  a  policeman. 

"  But  why  mustn't  she  stay  there  ?"  she  asked  from  the 
carriage  window. 

"  We've  got  our  orders,  mum,"  the  policeman  said 
tartly. 

"  But  what  is  the  use  of  the  bench,  then  ?" 
"  We  should  have  it  full  of  sleeping  tramps." 
Broser  curtailed  the  discussion  by  giving  the  creature 

432 


KEACTION 

money  for  a  bed.     As  the  carriage  rolled  on,   Allegra 
kissed  him  with  a  sudden  impulse. 

"  That's  a  cheap  kiss,"  he  said.  "  You  remember  the 
price  you  wanted  in  Orvieto — the  Premiership !" 

She  drew  back  from  his  attempted  repetition:  it  was 
an  unfortunate  reminder. 

She  had  not  gone  to  the  Engelborne  flat  on  the  Tues- 
day, but  Thursday  found  her  yearning  to  know  how 
Margaret  and  Kit  fared,  and  how  that  ghastly  race  was 
going.  She  found  Margaret  daintily  gowned  as  usual, 
and  petting  a  child,  but  with  her  outer  bulwarks  of  cheer- 
fulness evidently  abandoned  at  last.  The  whole  air  of  the 
flat  was  subtly  different.  Was  it  that  Raphael  Dominick 
had  been  removed  ?  Allegra  had  a  new  pang.  She  had 
virtually  robbed  poor  Margaret  of  a  friend. 

"  I  expected  to  find  you  in  better  spirits,"  she  said. 

"Why?" 

"  The  coming  end  of  the  war." 

"  That  is  what  depresses  me." 

"  You !  the  Imperialist!" 

"  Oh !"  Margaret  cried,  "  don't  you  think  I  feel  it — 
all  this  terrible  suffering?  Now  the  stress  is  over,  now 
England's  honor  is  safe,  one  may  think  of  it  all.  Oh, 
the  mothers  I  have  tried  to  console!  And  then  there  is 
one  of  Kit's  special  friends,  dead  of  fever,  poor  thing, 
in  the  prime  of  her  youth :  Kit  showed  her  the  light,  and 
she  went  out  to  Novabarba  as  a  nurse.  Of  course  Kit 
must  I't  know — she  is  terribly  low  to-day."  She  shudder- 
ed, and  suddenly  fell  back  on  her  chair,  fainting. 

"  Mother  Meg!  Mother  Meg!"  screamed  the  child. 

Allegra  rang  the  bell  in  equal  alarm.  Evidently  the 
death-race  was  a  close  one.  She  chafed  the  hands,  admir- 
ing, despite  her  agitation,  the  beautiful  artistic  fingers, 
the  rings,  tlie  rare  old  lace  at  the  wrists.  But  the  maid 
had  scarce  appeared  when  Margaret  opened  her  eyes  and 
smiled. 

"  Did  I  faint  again  ?"  she  said. 

433 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

"  O  my  poor  Margaret !     This  is  terrible." 

ec  It's  nothing.  I  always  come  to.  And  I  faint  warm, 
while  most  people  faint  cold.  That's  a  blessing.  The 
only  real  inconvenience  is,  I  dare  not  hold  babies." 

"  If  you  would  only  go  away  to  The  Manor  House. 
Joan  is  out  in  Novabarba,  you  know:  the  whole  place 
is  at  your  disposal,  she  says." 

"  It  is  so  sweet  of  her.  We  are  so  looking  forward  to 
it,  for  if  I  am  spared  to  go,  Kit  will  share  my  gladness 
without  any  alloy  of  earthly  pain." 

Allegra  sighed  hopelessly.  Well,  the  race  could  not  last 
much  longer  now. 

"  We  have  been  rejoicing  The  Manor  House  didn't  fall 
into  the  hands  of  a  Robinson,"  Margaret  went  on,  smiling. 
"  A  Brown  has  Wimpole  Hall,  and  Lord  Cowderleigh's 
house  belongs  to  a  Smith." 

"  How  you've  kept  track  of  the  country-side !" 

"  The  only  time  I  was  there,"  said  Margaret  proudly, 
"  I  was  able,  standing  at  cross-roads,  to  tell  an  inhabitant 
the  way  to  a  Hall  I  had  never  seen.  It  was  my  dear  father 
who  made  old  Devon  such  familiar  ground." 

Allegra  felt  a  pang  of  envy,  had  an  instant  of  selfish 
narrowness.  Surely  it  was  better  to  have  had  a  father 
who  devoted  himself  to  his  daughters  than  one  who  gave 
his  whole  life  to  his  country.  She  had  a  novel  flash  of 
sympathy  for  her  semi-neglected  mother.  Poor  blun- 
dering parents.  Why  had  they  not  guided  her  better 
at  life's  cross-roads  ?  Why  had  they  let  her  fall  into  the 
hands  of  Broser  ?  Her  father  loved  man,  yet  had  proved 
so  ignorant  of  men. 

She  wondered  suddenly  what  Margaret  would  have 
done,  wedded  to  a  Broser.  Sacrifice  herself,  no  doubt! 
Stick  to  her  contract !  Pray  for  her  husband,  hoping  and 
enduring  all  things!  And  Allegra's  instinct  and  reason 
rose  in  revolt.  The  original  contract  was  iniquitous ;  this 
promise  to  love,  honor,  and  obey,  extorted  from  a  girl  ig- 
norant of  life,  ignorant  of  her  own  womanhood.  And 

434 


REACTION 

had  she  not  fulfilled  enough  ?  She  had  been  denied  chil- 
dren to  bind  her  to  Broser,  but  his  children — his  Polly 
and  Molly  and  Bob — had  she  not  given  herself  to  them 
without  stint  or  question,  so  long  as  she  could  serve  them  ? 
Had  she  not  spent  her  best  of  youth  and  enthusiasm  in 
the  service  of  his  career — that  career  now  sure  of  its 
climax?  No,  he  could  not  complain  of  his  bargain, 
though  no  jot  more  of  love  or  honor  or  obedience  were  paid 
over  to  him. 

On  the  Friday  night — the  evening  before  her  own  party 
— she  was  glad  to  be  free  of  him,  and  at  a  Symphony  Con- 
cert. She  needed  music,  to  wash  away  all  this  impurity 
and  wretchedness.  It  was  a  great  house,  almost  like  a 
Grand  Opera  audience :  only  in  the  highest  gallery  could 
she  perceive  frock-coats  and  covered  shoulders.  But  the 
mere  radiation  of  wealth  and  ease  had  long  ceased  to  sting 
her.  Even  the  fluffy  jewelled  notoriety  of  the  "  smart " 
world,  who  sat  in  front  of  her  in  a  wonderful  green 
silk  ermine-trimmed  cloak,  seemed  merely  pitiable.  As 
little  as  Broser  did  she  now  dream  of  equating  gallery 
with  stalls.  Life  was  too  chaotic  and  nimble  for  bureau- 
cratic organization — Raphael  Dominick's  conversation 
had  dispelled  her  last  cloud-Utopias — and  the  real  troubles 
of  life  were  not  those  of  the  empty  stomach,  but  of  the 
empty  heart.  But  what  still  had  power  to  sting  her,  as 
she  listened  to  the  Parsifal  Prelude  (the  remembered  visu- 
al pictures  of  Bayreuth  flowing  past  her  with  the  music), 
was  the  barren  aesthetic  response  these  people  made  to 
what  the  prophets  cried  through  music  or  poems.  She, 
too,  had  wallowed  enough  in  fine  feelings — Raphael  had 
found  her  out  there — but  still  she  had  at  least  felt  as  real- 
ities the  Love  and  Faith  of  which  the  music  spoke.  With 
what  seriousness  she  had  once  set  out  herself  to  seek 
the  Holy  Grail :  even  now  was  it  too  late  to  win  the  cup 
of  salvation,  the  kiss  of  peace?  She  was  not  of  this 
world;  she  must  join  the  fervently  loving,  solitary 
Knights,  pass  through  the  dense  cypresses  and  cedars. 

435 


THE   MANTLE    OF   ELIJAH 

The  delicate  throbbing  music  grew  intenser,  acuter,  vi- 
brating with  bitter-sweet  emotion. 

"  How  subtly  it  expresses  Schopenhauer  in  every  bar !" 
said  at  the  close  her  cultured  Jewish  companion,  patroness 
of  all  the  arts. 

The  view  astonished  Allegra.  "  Do  these  people  enjoy 
pessimism  then  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Pessimism  beautifully  expressed  is  pleasurable,"  re- 
plied her  philosophic  friend.  "  But  what  these  people 
enjoy  to-night  is  the  massive  staccato  barbaric  bursts. 
Their  nerves  are  strung  up  for  war." 

"  Oh,"  said  Allegra  reproachfully,  "  and  I  was  forget- 
ting the  war,  and  congratulating  myself  that  at  last  I  had 
found  a  place  without  a  reminder  of  it." 

"  What  about  those  military  bandmasters  on  the  plat- 
form ?"  laughed  her  friend. 

"  I  didn't  notice  them.     What  are  they  doing  there  ?" 

"  Watching  the  conductor — to  learn  how  to  conduct." 

"  Oh,  then  civilians  have  still  some  virtue !"  said  Al- 
legra bitterly.  She  had  been  bored  to  death  by  the  mili- 
tary portraits  in  every  newspaper,  shop  window,  and  but- 
ton-hole ;  by  the  perpetual  gospel  of  "  strenuousness."  As 
she  watched  the  great  conductor,  tiptoeing  towards  his 
orchestra  on  his  long  legs,  he  suddenly  seemed  to  her  like 
a  great  black  bird,  his  coat  tails  spreading  like  rear 
feathers.  And  then  she  thought,  with  a  tender  whimsical 
smile,  Raphael  Dominick  might  have  called  him  a  Beyond- 
Bird,  with  a  detachable  throat  that  trilled  celestial  har- 
monies, now  like  pealing  thunder,  now  like  the  ripple  of 
a  sunlit  brook,  controlled  and  infinitely  modulated  at  his 
will  and  pleasure.  How  it  obeyed  his  subtlest  sense  of 
time  and  tune,  this  complex  musical  apparatus  of  his  with 
its  manifold  pipes  and  strings.  What  a  highly  evolved 
creature,  this  conductor:  how  foolish  to  annihilate  all 
these  wonderful  potentialities  with  a  fragment  of  shell. 
Yet  there  were  those  who  scoffed  at  all  men  who  were 
not  in  the  firing-line.  Verily,  civilization  had  forgotten 

436 


REACTION 

itself,  the  watch-dog  had  been  elevated  above  the  master 
of  the  house. 

She  studied  the  orchestra  with  new  interest,  admired 
the  splendid  symmetry  of  the  movements  of  the  bows,  the 
swift  precision  of  each  instrument:  she  thought  of  the 
striving  of  each  performer  after  perfection,  his  long 
hours  of  practice,  the  risings  in  the  cold  dawn,  the  strug- 
gle to  get  and  keep  a  place  in  his  little  world,  the  labor  for 
wife  and  children,  all  the  patient  travail  of  peace. 

Strenuousness  ?  What  was  the  soldier's  burden  ?  Forced 
marches,  rain,  scant  food,  the  risk  of  wounds,  even  death, 
but  often  enough  a  joyous  picnic;  mere  pleasure-seek- 
ers worked  as  hard  in  travelling,  hunting,  gypsying.  War- 
courage  was  mainly  contagious  excitement.  In  sieges 
the  civilians  were  always  as  brave  and  patient  as  the  sol- 
diers. What  wonder  ?  They  had  all  been  under  that 
stern  drill-master,  Life. 

Ah,  Life!  Music  alone  expressed  it,  its  nebulousness, 
its  elusiveness.  Her  relation  to  Raphael,  to  her  mother, 
to  Margaret,  to  her  father,  to  her  husband  even — how 
vague  and  floating.  Poor  Raphael,  God  send  him  happi- 
ness. Oh,  the  pity  and  heart-break  of  things.  On  the 
side-bench,  facing  her  diagonally,  was  a  beautiful  girl 
of  sixteen.  The  high-necked  dress,  the  flowing  hair,  the 
cheek  of  cream  and  roses,  the  candid  eyes,  the  glow  of  in- 
nocence and  idealism — she  must  have  looked  like  that 
once.  Was  that  child  destined  to  become  as  she  ?  Music, 
music,  one  needed  music  to  express  the  magic  mystery 
of  it  all.  And  she  no  longer  wanted  to  be  a  poet,  only  a 
great  wordless  creator,  flinging  out  her  passion  in  dia- 
pasons of  sobbing  sound. 

The  fluffy  "  smart  "  person  had  slipped  out  of  her  green 
silk  cloak  and  taken  her  white  shoulders  to  another  bench, 
to  chat  with  a  friend.  The  cloak  occupied  her  place,  fol- 
lowed the  lines  of  her  figure,  represented  her,  nay,  Allegra 
suddenly  saw,  was  her— listened  as  intelligently,  fulfilled 
her  smart  social  round.  And  the  Lady  Allegra — what 

437 


was  she  herself  in  the  social  whirl  ?  Only  her  outer  dress, 
her  vesture ;  and  even  that,  cut  as  fashion  dictated.  The 
real  self  lived  only  in  such  moments  as  these. 

St.  Cyril  was  right.  One  saved  society  by  saving  one's 
self.  The  call  was  to  the  individual  soul. 

When  she  got  home  she  found  a  letter  from  Joan: — 

"  Oh,  my  darling  Ally,  I  dare  not  tell  you  what  I  have 
seen  here  ...  a  nightmare  of  blood  and  fever.  The  one 
blessing  is,  it  can't  last  much  longer.  Oh,  the  poor  sol- 
diers !  Oh,  the  poor  INovabarbese !  And  yet  people  prate 
of  a  God  of  Mercy.  ..." 

Despite  her  first  sentence  Joan  slid  into  more  details 
with  every  page  of  her  voluminous  letter,  till  Allegra 
turned  physically  sick,  and  Barda,  brushing  her  hair, 
became  gravely  concerned  lest  she  should  not  look  her 
best  on  the  morrow. 

Joan  wound  up  excitedly: — 

"  But  I  have  taken  an  oath  that  when  I  come  back, 
I  will  never  rest  until  we  get  Woman  Franchise.  The 
men  have  failed  to  produce  civilization.  They  have  had 
all  ages  and  all  lands  to  experiment  in  and  have  never 
got  there.  Nineteen  centuries  after  Christ  the  world  is 
still  all  armed  camps,  mutually  snarling.  The  greatest 
nations  are  thinking  only  of  the  coming  struggle  for  the 
hegemony  of  the  world,  and  how  much  of  its  territory 
they  can  snatch ;  not  of  civilization's  progress  but  their 
own.  It  is  time  for  the  women  to  take  a  turn.  We  must 
be  everything,  even  legislators.  We  must  repair  all  that 
social  rottenness  which  war  gilds  over  for  a  time  and  then 
leaves  us  too  poor  to  set  right.  Of  course,  dear  old  Fizzy 
chaffs  me  endlessly — says  we'll  want  to  smoke  in  the 
Chamber,  etc. ;  but  I,  too,  have  a  sense  of  humor.  Or  tell 
me,  dear,  have  I  lost  it  of  late  years  ?  Sometimes  I  think 
it  has  been  ground  out  of  me  by  all  this  devilry.  Ally, 
dear,  I  count  on  you  to  give  up  your  dilettanteism,  to  help 
in  organizing  our  forces  and  baffling  these  brutes." 

Yes,  yes;  she  would  give  up  her  gropings  and  wander- 

438 


REACTION 

ings,  obey  this  providential  trumpet-call.  The  ruin  of  her 
life  had  been  her  idea  that  the  woman  must  sink  her  life 
in  the  man's.  If  no  soul  could  possess  another,  neither 
could  any  soul  represent  another.  She  had  been  wrong 
to  look  to  a  man  to  carry  on  her  father's  work — no  Salic 
law  forbade  a  spiritual  mission  to  fall  on  a  woman's 
shoulders :  there  was  no  exclusive  inheritance  through  the 
male.  The  Mantle  of  Elijah — how  if  she  dared  to  wear 
it  herself  ?  Its  inheritor  had  gone  over  to  the  .prophets 
of  Baal.  Not  one  prophet  of  the  Lord  was  left,  not  one. 
Was  not  this  the  only  thing  she  was  fit  for — action  on 
large  lines  ?  She  had  canvassed  for  Broser,  she  could  take 
the  field  again.  To  set  things  straight  by  a  great  univer- 
sal method — Raphael  had  truly  diagnosed  her  deepest 
longing.  Of  course  he  had  scoffed — there  would  be  abun- 
dance of  scoffers.  Even  Fizzy  himself  for  all  his  revo- 
lutionary recklessness  could  not  conceive  a  Parliament  of 
women.  And  in  truth  there  was  enough  to  justify  him: 
millions  of  women  even  of  the  wealthy  classes  as  un- 
balanced as  her  mother,  as  capricious  as  Dulsie,  as  aloof 
as  Minnie,  as  selfish  as  Miranda  Grey,  as  mediocre  as 
Polly  and  Molly,  as  ruthless  as  the  fluffy  owner  of  the 
green  silk  opera-cloak,  as  pretty  and  malicious  as  Mrs. 
Whindale  could  paint  in  her  blackest  moods.  But  women 
had  been  so  long  the  toys  or  the  torturers  of  men — they 
could  not  be  untwisted  in  a  day.  Many,  too,  loved  fight- 
ing, adored  brute  force  as  they  adored  the  reek  of  their 
husbands'  pipes,  the  tang  of  virility  and  brutality.  But 
let  men  struggle  for  male  ideals,  woman's  mission  was  to 
struggle  for  female  ideals :  ideals  of  love,  pity,  tenderness. 
Fate  would  strike  the  diagonal  of  the  forces.  Yes, 
whether  through  women  like  Joan  or  men  like  her  father 
— for  both  sexes  must  work  for  it  hand-in-hand — there 
must  be  forced  upon  the  world  woman's  vision  of  life ;  the 
desire  of  the  gentler  heart. 

"So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 
A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us 

439 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 


And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness." 


The  lines  she  had  quoted  to  herself  in  that  letter  of  hers 
went  throbbing  endlessly  through  her  brain  like  a  haunt- 
ing tune  as  she  tossed  sleepless. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE    GOAL 

HER  husband  breakfasted  with  her  on  the  fateful  Sat- 
urday, talking  over  the  preparations  for  the  even- 
ing. He  was  vastly  excited,  had  half  refurnished  his  rooms 
(though  Allegra's  taste  had  made  them  the  talk  of  the 
town),  spending  money  like  water  for  the  brief  edification 
of  a  royal  eye  that  had  seen  all  the  grandeurs  of  the  earth. 
Allegra  was  reading  her  letters  quietly. 

"Thank  God!"  she  said. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?" 

"  That  poor  girl  is  dead." 

"What  poor  girl?" 

"  The  girl  I  used  to  play  to — Kit  Engelborne." 

"  Oh,  then  there  will  be  no  need  for  you  to  go  there  any 
more.  I  am  glad." 

"  I  shall  go  this  afternoon." 

"  You  can't  do  that — you  have  so  much  to  do  here." 

"  It  shall  all  be  done.  But  I  must  go  and  see  Margaret. 
It  was  a  race  between  their  lives.  I  am  glad  she  sur- 
vives." 

She  was  thinking  Raphael  would  be  pleased  too,  to 
have  his  first  prayer  answered.  "  She  is  to  stay  at  The 
Manor  House  after  the  funeral,  and  I  shall  go  down  to  see 
her  installed,  with  physicians  within  call." 

"  Your  interest  in  these  persons  is  somewhat  excessive. 
I  was  looking  forward  to  having  you  all  to  myself,  now  the 
session  is  over." 

"  I  am  sorry  to  disappoint  you." 

She  spoke  quietly,  but  he  could  not  tell  if  she  were  sin- 

441 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

cere  or  sarcastic.  He  seemed  to  see  the  cloven  hoof  be- 
ginning to  peep  out  again,  but  he  was  afraid  to  provoke 
her  to-day.  After  to-night  was  safely  over,  he  could  take 
her  in  hand,  annex  her  totally  as  he  was  annexing  Nova- 
barba.  At  present  she  seemed  much  like  Novabarba  after 
the  first  war,  still  simmering  with  revolt.  He  had  been 
too  weak  and  considerate,  he  must  stamp  his  sovereignty 
indelibly  upon  her. 

Margaret  Engelborne  met  Allegra  with  a  grave  wan 
smile.  They  kissed. 

"  She  passed  from  my  arms  to  mother's,"  said  Mar- 
garet. 

"  I  have  brought  some  lilies.  May  I  lay  them  on  her 
breast  ?" 

"  She  will  be  happy  at  your  sweet  thought.  Can  you 
wait  a  few  moments?  Miss  Oxager  is  with  my  darling. 
It  is  such  a  blow  for  her,  poor  dear  soul.  She  is  so  fond  of 
Kit." 

"  So  am  I.  But  I  am  glad  that  one  of  you  is  left  to  us ; 
that  you  are  bearing  up  so  well." 

"  Miss  Oxager  would  break  down,  if  I  broke  down," 
said  Margaret  simply. 

Presently  Miss  Oxager's  kind  face  appeared,  her  glass- 
es dewy,  and  then  Margaret  led  Allegra  towards  the  room 
she  had  never  entered,  and  opened  the  door  for  her,  paus- 
ing herself  on  the  threshold. 

Not  dark — as  she  had  somehow  expected — only  under 
a  sacred  hush.  There  was  no  need  of  darkness  now.  The 
window  was  open,  the  blind  up,  Margaret's  vagrant 
pigeons  cooed  on  the  window-sill.  A  flood  of  sunlight  lay 
over  all;  over  the  bright  furniture,  the  pretty  knick- 
knacks,  the  picture  of  St.  Barbara,  the  crucifix,  the  white 
bed,  the  wasted  pointed  face  with  great  hollows  under  the 
eyes :  the  face  she  had  never  seen  in  life,  a  face  of  sorrows 
and  agonies  heroically  endured,  yet  a  face  of  peace,  a 
face  whose  sufferings  seemed  ended  seons  before.  There 
was  an  air  of  the  immemorial  dead. 

442 


THE   GOAL 

"  She  met  death  jubilant,"  said  Margaret,  "  like  a 
woman  going  to  her  lover."  She  closed  the  door,  leaving 
Allegra  alone  with  the  auditress  of  her  music. 

Flowers  were  already  upon  the  breast.  Allegra  took  the 
dead  hand,  the  beautiful  waxen  dead  hand,  and  pressed 
the  lilies  in  it. 

She  could  scarcely  see  the  poor  dead  face  for  tears. 
Impossible  Kit  could  have  been  only  nerves  and  a  brain, 
whose  molecules,  their  vain  biological  agitation  over, 
had  relapsed  to  chemic  existence.  Allegra's  soul  threw 
off  the  gray  ashes  of  modern  wisdom,  yearned  towards 
the  soul  that  had  once  shone  through  that  death-mask, 
tender,  heroic,  infinitely  strong  and  patient.  Surely  such 
a  creature  could  not  be  as  the  beasts  that  perish. 

Strenuousness  ?  Alas,  she  thought  again,  life  offered 
opportunity  enough  for  strenuousness.  One  need  not  seek 
it  at  the  bayonet's  point.  By  the  side  of  these  ghastly 
nine  years  of  suffering,  what  were  the  heroism  of  a  hun- 
dred V.  C.'s  ?  Strenuousness  ?  Relaxed  in  civilization's 
Capua,  must  it  always  be  resought  through  the  fighting 
passion,  through  man's  kinship  with  the  beasts,  never 
through  his  kinship  with  the  angels? 

This  dead  girl  was  not  merely  herself;  she  was  a  large 
pitiful  symbol  of  the  faith  and  martyrdom  of  the  ages, 
dreaming  of  a  divine  significance  in  things,  and  a  divine 
purpose  in  the  process  of  the  suns.  Was  it  all  to  lead  up 
to  the  blatant  triumph  of  a  Broser,  callous  to  all  the  spirit- 
ual subtleties  which  the  centuries  had  agonized  to  evolve  ? 
Had  civilization  come  thus  far  only  to  perish  by  the  Goths 
it  bred  in  its  own  bosom  ?  The  century  that  had  seen 
poets  and  philosophers  hail  the  coming  Kingdom  of  God, 
was  ending  in  darkness:  France  forswearing  Justice, 
America  Equality,  England  Freedom. 

Back  in  the  music-room,  Allegra  arranged  to  come  to 
the  funeral,  and  to  bear  off  Margaret  to  Devonshire. 

"  I  only  hope  you  won't  be  lonely,"  she  said.  "  Of 
course  there's  the  housekeeper  and  her  cat." 

443 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

"  I  am  never  alone,"  said  Margaret.  "  Thank  you  for 
both  of  us.  The  only  thing  on  earth  we  have  now  to  wish 
for  is  another  volume  of  poems  from  Mr.  Dominick." 

"  I  think  he  will  write  it,"  said  Allegra  softly. 

"  Yes — I  think  he  will.  The  prospect  of  it  will  be 
one  of  Kit's  chief  earth-interests,  and  the  day  I  get  the 
new  book  I  shall  hear  her  earth-laughter." 

"  Earth-laughter !     What  a  quaint  phrase !" 

"  Why  quainter  than  heavenly  laughter  ?  The  man 
who  loves  a  woman  dearly  speaks  of  her  laughter  as 
heavenly,  as  divine,  does  he  not?  I  suppose  he  feels  in 
her  an  accentuation  of  the  Christ's  smile,  all  holy  and  pure 
and  joyous.  So  I  have  often  seemed  to  hear  earth-laugh- 
ter from  my  dead  father,  when,  amid  all  the  novel  calls, 
trials,  and  pleasures  of  the  after-life,  a  wave  of  hap- 
piness has  reached  him  from  the  old  earth  he  knew  and 
loved." 

Descending  the  staircase,  Allegra  saw  through  misty 
eyes  a  venerable  white-bearded  figure  in  a  glossy  high 
hat  and  a  broadcloth  frock-coat,  with  a  rose  in  his  button- 
hole, and  in  his  white-gloved  hand  a  little  white  box  tied 
with  pink  ribbon.  To  her  surprise  the  glossy  hat  came  off 
in  the  gloved  hand,  and  the  venerable  beard  bobbed  in  a 
courtly  inclination. 

"  Good-afternoon,  Lady  Allegra."  There  was  a  vinous 
reek  in  his  breath. 

"  Good-afternoon,  Professor  Pont,"  she  said,  startled. 
"  Don't  go  up  to-day." 

His  face  clouded.     "  Is  it  over  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Which  ?" 

"  Ah,  you  saw  it  was  a  race.  But  Miss  Engelborne 
herself  has  been  spared,  thank  Heaven." 

"  Ah,  she  has  great  will-power.  There  is  no  death  if 
we  so  choose.  It  was  a  great  score  for  Christian  Science. 
I  am  only  sorry  the  sister  gave  in.  My  wife  will  be  sorry, 
too,  I  sav  my  wife  with  intention,  for  I  was  married 

444 


THE    GOAL 

yesterday  and  I  was  bringing  Miss  Engelborne  a  piece  of 
the  Cornucopia — of  the  wedding-cake." 

"  I  congratulate  you,"  she  murmured.  So  that  was 
the  secret  of  his  fine  clothes.  He  had  found  some  fond 
moneyed  female. 

"  My  wife  " — he  gloated  on  the  phrase — "  will  be  so 
pleased  to  hear  I  met  you.  You  are  the  first  person  she 
asked  after,  when  she  returned  from  her  American  lect- 
ure-tour." 

"  What !     Is  it  the  same  Mrs.  Pont  ?" 

"  My  dear  Lady  Allegra,  what  do  you  take  me  for  ? 
You  see,  one  does  not  need  the  fetters  of  matrimony  to  be 
faithful  for  a  lifetime.  However,  as  Christian  Scientists 
we  thought  it  best — she  has  converted  me,  I  confess; 
though  I  do  not  propose  to  join  her  on  the  platform,  or 
obscure  in  any  way  her  phenomenal  success — moral  and 
financial.  And,  truly,  her  system  is  not  incompatible 
with  my  World-Philosophy." 

Poor  foolish  Professorin!  To  bind  herself  irrevocably 
to  this  man  after  a  lifetime  of  proved  worthlessness.  Oh, 
the  unceasing  self-abandonment  of  women:  the  strange 
unpredictable  movement  of  life.  Here  was  she  growing 
more  and  more  to  feel  the  impossibility  of  marriage :  and 
here  was  a  woman  who  had  safely  dispensed  with  it,  tying 
herself  like  a  schoolgirl ! 

"  It  would  be  inappropriate  to  give  Miss  Engelborne 
the  wedding-cake  now,  nicht  wahr?  May  I  present  you 
with  it  ?" 

"  Me !"  Wedding-cake  at  such  a  moment !  "  No, 
thank  you." 

"  You  must  not  be  so  stand-offish !  I  accepted  some 
of  your  wedding-cake." 

"  Did  you  ?"  she  murmured,  anxious  to  be  gone. 

"  Did  I  ?  Why,  but  for  me  there  would  have  been  no 
wedding."  His  alcoholized  imagination  believed  it  for  a 
moment,  and  prompted  him  to  add,  with  a  malicious  re- 
membrance of  the  scene  on  Westminster  Bridge :  "  It  was 

445 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

I  that  told  Bob  not  to  miss  the  chance  of  marrying  a  lady 
of  title." 

She  flushed  crimson,  then  went  back  to  white.  She 
hated  the  speaker,  and  hated  what  he  said,  but  it  accorded 
only  too  well  with  what  her  detestation  for  Broser  had  been 
whispering  of  late.  She  bowed.  "  Good-afternoon." 

He  put  out  his  hand.  She  made  a  dab  at  it  as  the  quick- 
est way  of  getting  rid  of  him.  But  his  great  white  glove 
closed  on  her  little  gray  glove.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  it's  very 
strange.  I  was  in  at  the  first  Mrs.  Broser's  death,  and  the 
second  Mrs.  Broser's  marriage.  And  he  hasn't  even  ask- 
ed me  to  meet  the  Prince.  If  Bob  hadn't  made  poor  Su- 
sannah stand  on  her  feet  for  hours  receiving  his  guests, 
she  might  have  been  in  your  place  to-night." 

Her  memory  went  back  to  that  gruesome  reception, 
saw  a  girlish  enthusiast  talking  to  the  Fonts,  heard  the 
cry  of  consternation  as  the  hostess  fell  adown  the  staircase. 
"  But  he  didn't  know  she  was  ill,"  she  said,  defending 
him. 

"  Didn't  he  ?  Why,  there  were  frightful  scenes  be- 
tween them,  the  maid  told  me.  Poor  Susannah  almost 
went  down  on  her  knees — she  was  in  agony." 

"  I  cannot  listen  to  gossip." 

"  Gossip !  Why,  wasn't  I  in  attendance  on  her  ? 
Didn't  she  say  with  her  own  lips — " 

"  I  really  must  go,"  and  Allegra  hurried  towards  the 
carriage  door  the  groom  was  holding  open. 

But  her  heart  wished  to  believe,  beat  "  Soros  !    Soros !" 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
THE    DUEL    OF    THE    SEXES 

PEOPLE  were  loitering  about  the  great  beflagged  and 
festooned  corner  house,  watching  the  comings  and 
goings.  It  was  known  the  preparations  were  for  Royalty, 
and  the  very  brick-work  was  invested  with  glamour.  The 
crowd  was  growing  thicker  with  the  waning  afternoon: 
by  nightfall  the  street  would  be  impassable  save  for  the 
carriages  of  the  elect. 

In  the  great  hall,  which  the  workmen  had  just  convert- 
ed into  a  fairyland  of  flowers  and  palms,  she  met  her 
husband,  complacently  supervising. 

His  brutally  healthy  face  jarred  on  her  memory  of  that 
other  face — ivory  against  the  white  pillow.  The  festal 
preparations,  the  riot  of  roses  on  the  staircase — the  reek 
of  the  triumph  of  life  and  selfishness — made  her  gorge 
rise.  To  stand  at  the  head  of  those  ornate  stairs,  presiding 
over  his  apotheosis,  while  Eat  lay  dead,  while  her  own 
father  sat  heart-broken,  while  Raphael  Dominick  wan- 
dered sad  and  lonely,  while  Novabarba  was  red  with  blood 
— no,  she  suddenly  knew  it  was  impossible. 

"  I  am  going  to  my  room,"  she  said. 

"  Nothing  must  be  wrong  to-night,"  he  said,  half  au- 
thoritatively, half  humorously. 

"  Nothing  shall — except  me." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?"     He  was  alarmed. 

She  was  mounting  the  stairs.  "  I  fear  I  cannot  face 
your  guests." 

For  a  moment  his  dazed  brain  scarcely  grasped  the  full 
implication  of  her  words.  Then  he  pursued  her  up  that 

447 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

floral  staircase  which  his  imagination  had  so  oft  pictured 
them  descending  in  state  to  receive  the  royal  guest. 

"  What  is  the  matter — are  you  ill  ?" 

"  Not  physically." 

"  Oh,  you  frightened  me.  But  you  oughtn't  to  have 
the  blues  to-day,  all  sun  and  happiness,  the  best  day  of 
my  life.  Drink  a  glass  of  champagne." 

"  No,  thank  you.  I  really  must  ask  you  to  get  on  with- 
out me  to-night." 

"  Allegra,  what  do  you  mean  ?"  His  voice  had  a  touch 
of  terror. 

"  Do  you  forget  I  come  from  a  death-bed  ?" 

"  That  girl !  But  she  isn't  a  relative,  or  a  public  per- 
sonage." 

"  She  was  a  heroine.  I'd  rather  see  national  mourning 
for  her  than  national  rejoicing  over  the  deadNovabarbese." 

"  Do  you  begin  that  again  ?  I  thought  you  had  learned 
to  understand." 

"  I  don't  want  to  argue."  She  mounted  the  second 
flight.  He  ran  after  her,  passing  a  staring  footman. 

"  But  have  you  forgotten  that  the  Pr — " 

"  I  have  forgotten  nothing." 

"  You  are  doing  this  to  spite  me — to  spoil  my  best 
hour." 

She  entered  her  bedroom.  He  followed  ere  she  could 
turn  the  key.  Barda  was  laying  out  the  latest  Parisian 
creation.  The  sight  of  it  made  her  shudder.  In  this 
shimmering  robe  she  was  to  adorn  his  triumph,  like  some 
beribboned  beast  in  a  conqueror's  procession. 

"  I  shall  not  need  it,  Barda,"  she  said. 

"  Go  away,"  he  growled  to  the  open-eyed  girl.  He 
argued,  pleaded,  stormed.  Then  he  took  Allegra  by  the 
shoulders.  "  You  shall  receive  my  guests." 

"  Beat  me  black  and  blue,  and  with  these  bare  shoulders 
I  will  receive  your  guests." 

He  let  her  stagger  back.  "  I  could  kill  you,"  he  mut- 
tered. 

448 


THE   DUEL   OF    THE    SEXES 

"  As  you  killed  your  first  wife  ?" 

He  staggered  in  his  turn.  For  a  moment  he  actually 
saw  the  earlier  scene.  It  was  a  very  simple  hallucination. 
The  dress  was  on  the  bed.  Susannah  had  only  to  stand  for 
the  moment  in  Allegra's  place. 

"  I  see — somebody  has  poisoned  your  mind.  I  didn't 
realize  she  was  seriously  ill." 

"  Then  realize  now  I  am  serious.  I  am  going  to  lie 
down.  Please  leave  me." 

"  On  condition  you  get  up  later." 

"  You  have  my  ultimatum." 

"  Oho !  then  it  is  war.  You  have  mine.  You  shall  be 
nowhere  in  this  house  but  at  the  head  of  my  stairs." 

"  Then  I  shall  be  nowhere  in  your  house.  I  shall  go." 
The  moment  the  words  left  her  lips  she  saw  that  this 
was  the  one  true  course.  Here  was  the  solution  for 
which  her  brain  had  been  groping  for  days.  Now  it  had 
shot  up  the  answer.  Her  first  semi-separation  in  the  in- 
terests of  hypocrisy  had  been  as  absurd  as  Raphael  had 
proclaimed  it.  Ah,  he  had  not  had  to  grope  for  the  true 
solution:  he  had  found  it  at  the  first  hearing.  But  all 
these  years  she  had  been  learning  to  know  herself;  she  had 
moved  through  a  countless  series  of  subtle  actions  and  re- 
actions, and  now  at  last — through  lessons  of  love  and  death 
and  hate — it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  found  herself: 
no  society  opera-cloak,  but  an  individuality,  a  woman 
self-centred,  not  despairing,  ready  to  go  out,  to  fight,  first 
hand,  for  her  own  ideas,  for  her  own  ideals.  And  a  great 
peace  fell  upon  her  soul.  But  upon  Broser's  fell  a  violent 
tempest. 

"  Go  where  ?"  he  thundered. 

"  That  is  my  business."  Had  he  been  suffering,  she 
felt  she  could  have  clung  to  him;  had  he  been  cast  into 
a  dungeon,  she  could  have  played  the  Fidelio  to  his  Flores- 
tan.  But  he  possessed  everything  in  the  world :  he  should 
no  longer  possess  her. 

"  Ah,  I  see  it  all,"  he  shouted.  "  You  have  been  to 

449 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

that  vile  flat — you  have  seen  your  Dominick  again.     You 
are  going  to  him." 

"  You  cannot  insult  me.    He  has  gone  back  to  Italy." 

"  And  you  itch  to  follow  him !" 

"  Yes,  at  once."  She  went  towards  the  bell.  "  I 
shall  pack  my  personal  belongings." 

He  pulled  her  back  from  the  bell.  "  Have  you  lost  your 
senses  ?  You,  who  talk  of  ideals !  How  can  you  leave 
your  lawful  husband  ?" 

"  Your  first  wife  left  you — you  had  to  endure  that." 

"My  first  wife  died."' 

"  The  first  Allegra  you  married  died :  you  killed  her." 

"  I'll  kill  the  second  Allegra,  too,  rather  than  have 
this  scandal." 

"  You  saw  Death  has  no  terrors  for  me.  But — a  bud- 
ding Premier  hanged  by  the  neck !  The  ^Tovabarbese  will 
be  avenged,  nicht  wahr,  as  your  old  friend  used  to  say." 

He  clenched  his  fists.  "  You  are  a  brazen  vixen.  Tho 
world  will  spit  on  you  when  it  learns  the  truth." 

"  Indeed !  Let  us  hope  for  your  sake  it  never  will 
learn  the  truth." 

"  For  my  sake  ?  What  have  I  to  be  ashamed  of  ?  That 
my  wife  ran  away  with  a  Jew !" 

"  You  know  that  is  a  falsehood." 

"  Any  other  reason  would  be  too  ridiculous.  Will  you 
tell  people  it's  politics — they'll  laugh  at  you.  Do  you 
think  anybody  who  knows  the  world  will  believe  that  you 
eloped  with  an  idea — that  you  left  your  husband  because 
you  were  sentimental  over  savages  ?" 

"  That  is  not  my  reason." 

"What  other?" 

"  That  I  am  no  longer  sentimental  over  a  savage." 

"  If  I  am  a  savage  I  will  act  up  to  it."  His  eyes  pro- 
truded, but  it  was  the  glare  of  potency,  not  impotency. 
They  were  grotesque,  but  too  menacing  to  be  comical. 
She  flinched  before  them.  "  You  shall  receive  my  guests 
to-night,  or — " 

^450 


THE   DUEL   OF   THE    SEXES 

She  sprang  to  the  bell.     "  I'll  ring  for  Barda." 

He  laughed :  his  fury  passed.  "  That  threat  is  played 
out,  you  little  idiot.  In  the  face  of  the  scandal  you 
threaten,  nothing  else  counts.  Servants'  gossip?  What 
is  that  to  Society's  gossip  ?  You  shall  not  leave  my  house, 
if  I  have  to  lock  you  in  your  room  for  the  rest  of  your  life. 
Mind  you  are  dressed  in  good  time." 

And  he  went  out,  smiling  sardonically.  To-morrow  he 
would  be  gentler;  they  would  kiss  and  make  it  up.  To- 
night he  had  no  option  but  war. 

Allegra  saw  she  had  blundered.  She  should  have  fled 
and  explained  afterwards.  Her  heart  beat  spasmodically, 
her  cheek  was  white.  She  had  the  strength  to  go,  but  not 
the  strength  to  endure  these  vulgar  squabbles,  these  physi- 
cal encounters  of  hate,  as  loathsome  as  of  love.  Well, 
let  her  endue  herself  in  her  gown,  let  her  surrender  to  his 
will  for  the  last  time.  To-night  he  was  on  the  watch,  was 
capable  of  stopping  her  by  violence.  Fighting  Bob  might 
achieve  a  supplementary  domestic  reputation.  It  would 
be  easy  enough  to  slip  away  to-morrow  or  the  next  day: 
his  threat  of  mediaeval  incarceration  was  ridiculous. 

Besides,  she  had  not  really  planned  where  to  go.  She 
must  take  care,  too,  that  he  did  not  smirch  her  future  and 
cripple  her  powers  for  good.  Her  departure  must  be  chap- 
eroned by  the  most  unimpeachable  matron  of  her  circle. 
She  must  leave  in  a  blaze  of  publicity,  and  live  for  a  time 
under  protective  wings.  Yes,  on  second  thoughts,  it  was 
just  as  well  he  had  delayed  her  flight. 

She  rang  for  Barda  and  went  to  bed — to  think. 

First,  there  was  her  family.  Her  mother  was  too  old 
and  too  hysterical.  There  would  be  too  many  scenes,  too 
many  explanations.  The  poor  decrepit  Earl  would 
suffer  by  them.  Joan  was  in  Novabarba.  Connie  she 
had  never  really  known.  Mabel  was  too  comfortably  do- 
mesticated to  be  sympathetic.  Polly  and  Molly  would 
side  with  their  father  in  an  emergency.  She  ran  over  the 
list  of  her  female  friends — she  was  surprised  to  find  how 

451 


THE    MANTLE    OF    ELIJAH 

superficial  were  her  relations  with  the  women  she  kissed. 
Margaret  was  the  only  one  she  could  endure  to  live  with, 
and  Margaret  was  just  now  with  her  dead.  But  then  that 
Devonshire  project — could  they  not  take  up  their  abode 
at  The  Manor  House  ?  No,  not  at  the  start  of  her  new 
career.  Margaret  was  single,  was  Bohemian.  The  outer 
world  knew  nothing  of  her  saintliness,  quite  possibly 
would  condemn  her  easy  friendships  with  men,  would  rate 
her  as  "  fast."  That  would  be  grimly  ironical,  no  doubt,  but 
the  world  was  like  that.  Nay,  Broser  might  even  depict 
Margaret  as  the  accomplice  in  the  Dominick  intrigue. 
No,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  home  to  her  par- 
ents, in  the  first  instance  at  least.  Later  she  could,  per- 
haps, live  with  Margaret,  if  indeed — and  here  was  a  new 
doubt,  most  grimly  humorous  of  all — if,  indeed,  Margaret's 
ethics  would  permit  her  to  live  with  a  woman  who  had  left 
her  husband!  Possibly  she  would  grieve  bitterly  over 
the  sinner,  pray  for  her  return.  No,  Joan  must  be  her 
ultimate  haven.  Joan  her  protectress,  the  little  Joan  she 
had  patronized  in  the  nursery !  How  humorously  things 
worked  out,  life  smiling  waggishly  through  its  tears.  In 
the  meantime,  though,  how  to  leave  Broser's  house?  To 
go  alone,  or  even  with  Barda,  would  be  to  play  into  her 
husband's  hands.  He  had  already  his  Orvieto  story. 
Barda  would  figure  in  his  denunciations  as  the  chamber- 
maid of  Spanish  comedy.  But  to  summon  her  mother 
to  London  and  for  such  a  purpose — that  was  scarcely  feasi- 
ble. How  explain  the  case  to  her  ?  "  The  union  of  souls 
for  great  purposes  " — that  was  to  have  been  their  mar- 
riage :  the  definition  was  Broser's  own.  His  soul  had  been 
unfaithful,  divorce  was  therefore  just.  Why,  the  very 
data  of  the  argument  would  be  caviare  to  her  primitive 
parent.  But  suddenly  a  thought  came,  like  a  flash  of 
light.  The  Duchess  of  Dalesbury !  That  queer  old  figure 
sprang  up,  infinitely  motherly.  She  felt  her  kiss  on  her 
lips.  And  the  Duchess  had  hated  Broser  from  the  first. 
Ah,  Alligator  was  indeed  coming  round  to  some  at  least 

452 


THE   DUEL   OF   THE    SEXES 

of  her  aunt's  opinions.  "  Wait  till  you  are  older,"  rang 
mockingly  in  her  brain.  Surely  the  Duchess  was  the 
ideal  protectress;  prepared  by  Providence  itself  for  this 
stage  of  the  tragi-comedy.  Her  sharp  tongue,  her  austere 
morality,  her  refusal  to  receive  persons  even  with  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  certificate — all  these  known  eccen- 
tricities of  the  dear  old  Tory  gentlewoman  would  now  be 
turned  to  the  refugee's  advantage.  The  Duchess  had  of 
course,  had  a  card  "  to  meet  the  Prince."  If  she  should 
come,  Allegra  might  perhaps  find  a  moment  in  which 
to  plot  her  Hegira.  But  of  her  coming  there  seemed  scant 
chance.  Well,  she  must  be  whipped  up.  Allegra  found 
herself  yearning  for  this  comfortress  in  her  loneliness, 
a  loneliness  that  would  be  accentuated  amid  the  brilliant 
throng  of  her  guests.  At  any  rate  she  would  write  to  the 
Duchess  while  resentment  was  hot  in  her  breast.  To-mor- 
row she  might  weaken  again,  vacillate,  hypnotized  by  this 
brutal  Broser,  by  the  world's  opinions,  by  Margaret's. 
The  Duchess  would  serve  to  keep  the  fire  alight,  once  she 
knew  it  was  burning :  would  pour  oil  on  the  flames. 

She  had  writing  materials  brought  to  her,  and  she 
scribbled : 

"  DEAR  AUNT, — Don't  be  upset  but  I  have  resolved  to 
leave  my  husband  as  soon  as  possible.  You  were  right 
about  him  from  the  first.  He  threatens  he  will  imprison 
me  here  by  force  sooner  than  let  me  go,  but  that  of  course 
is  all  nonsense.  Anyhow,  I  want  you  to  come  some  day 
and  take  me  away,  so  as  to  throw  your  a?gis  over  me,  as 
he  is  capable  of  any  malice.  I  know  you  hate  coming  to- 
night, or  we  might  have  had  a  talk  as  to  ways  and  means. 
But  to-morrow  will  do.  My  love  to  the  Duke,  and  I  am 
enjoying  Five  French  Cathedrals." 

She  had  really  liked  the  pictures. 

Barda  undertook  to  post  this  secretly.  It  would  be  in 
time  for  the  last  delivery ;  she  would  put  on  express  stamps 
to  make  sure. 

453 


CHAPTEE  XXV 
FAREWELL 

FOR  over  an  hour  and  a  half  Lady  Allegra  had  stood 
at  her  post,  looking  down  on  the  banks  of  white  roses 
that  hid  the  balustrade  and  the  columns  of  crimson  roses 
that  concealed  the  pillars.  The  celebrated  rooms  buzzed 
with  celebrities,  and  their  womankind  or  their  mankind, 
shone  with  historic  jewels  and  pageant  costumes.  The 
eminent  Anglo  -  Imperials  felt  themselves  bourgeoning 
in  this  gorgeous  hot-house  of  the  elder  civilization ;  they 
drank  in  the  stifling,  heavy-scented  air  as  though  it  were 
ambrosial.  The  cachet  of  Fashion  and  Aristocracy  had 
been  given  to  the  colonies  in  their  person ;  they  themselves 
would  plant  similar  oases  of  feudalism  in  the  deserts  of  de- 
mocracy. Uniforms,  court  dresses,  coronets,  rich-gleam- 
ing orders,  emblazoned  carriages — these  ought  to  be  native 
elements  of  decent  society,  not  the  mere  exotic  pomp  of  im- 
ported governors.  Even  the  barbaric  splendor  of  the  In- 
dian princes — their  begemmed  turbans,  the  armlets  and 
bracelets  glittering  on  their  bare  dusky  flesh — stirred  a 
subtle  regret  for  that  wonderful,  regal  old  world,  sub- 
merged by  slapdash  modern  societies,  whooping  for  equal- 
ity. 

And  Broser,  agent  under  Providence  of  this  transforma- 
tion of  ideals,  exuded  an  immense  content  from  his  min- 
isterial person.  The  tighter  grew  the  crush,  the  more  his 
breast  expanded.  How  lovely  and  stately  his  wife  looked, 
more  magnificent  in  her  simple  gown  than  some  of  those 
ladies  whose  dresses  were  scarcely  visible  through  their 

454 


FAREWELL 

jewels.  Surely  the  first  woman  in  London  for  brains, 
breeding,  and  beauty,  spite  all  her  private  whimsies,  doubt- 
less inherited  from  her  mother.  ISTo  need  to  instruct  her 
how  to  talk  to  the  lions,  how  to  receive  Royalty.  She  was 
the  fit  appendage  of  his  greatness — he  really  would  con- 
ciliate her  a  little  on  the  morrow.  Yes,  he  would  yield  her 
some  little  point  of  social  legislation.  What  a  pity  that 
diamonds  could  not  propitiate  her !  From  the  streets  there 
was  borne  to  his  ears  the  dull  roar  of  cheer  after  cheer — 
herald  of  the  mightier  outburst  to  come — as  some  popular 
politician  or  soldier  stepped  out  upon  the  street-carpet 
from  the  interminable  procession  of  carriages.  When- 
ever there  was  a  lull  some  patriotic  strain  would  burst 
forth.  Yes,  Britain  was  as  proud  of  Broser  as  Broser  of 
Britain. 

Allegra,  with  that  ever-increasing  detachment  of  hers, 
felt  herself  outside  of  it  all — her  astral  self  surveyed  that 
strange  bejewelled  and  beflowered  Lady  Allegra  Broser 
smiling  and  handshaking  and  receiving  congratulations 
upon  her  husband's  brilliantly  successful  policy.  That 
was  but  the  shell  of  herself,  the  opera-cloak  keeping  the 
lines  of  her  figure.  All  at  once  her  Self  leapt  back  into 
her  body.  She  was  shaking  hands  with  the  Duchess  of 
Dalesbury,  and  her  "  How  good  of  you  to  come !"  was  no 
longer  the  stereotyped  formula  but  a  cry  from  the  depths. 

"  Yes — I  have  come  for  you,"  said  the  Duchess  with 
a  diabolical  smile,  and  she  dragged  at  Allegra's  hand  as 
if  to  pull  her  forward  and  down  the  stairs. 

Broser  had  darted  sideways  and  extended  his  hand. 

"  Ah,  Duchess !"  he  said  sarcastically,  "  delighted  to 
see  you  at  last  under  my  humble  roof." 

The  Duchess  ignored  his  hand,  but  put  her  ear-trumpet 
interrogatively  to  her  left  ear,  while  her  right  hand  con- 
tinued to  tug  at  Allegra. 

"  Delighted  to  see  you,"  Broser  was  forced  to  repeat, 
his  sarcasm  rendered  abortive. 

"  It  is  the  first  time  and  the  last,"  she  replied  in  her 

455 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

harshest  tone.  "  Good-night.  The  police  won't  let  my 
carriage  wait."  She  was  blocking  the  ascent  of  the  new 
arrivals  now,  preventing  them  saluting  their  hostess,  so 
that  the  chatter  on  the  great  staircase  grew  louder.  Broser 
scowled,  trying  to  smile. 

"  You  are  not  going  so  soon,  Duchess,"  he  said. 

"  Yes — Alligator  is  coming  away  under  my  protection." 

u  Poor  old  thing,"  he  said  to  Allegra  in  a  loud  whis- 
per, in  case  the  bystanders  and  the  ascending  guests  should 
hear  anything  over  the  buzz  of  conversation  and  the  music 
of  the  band. 

The  Duchess  put  out  her  trumpet.  "  What  have  you 
to  say  against  it,  sir  ?" 

He  was  disconcerted.  "  Come  into  the  room  and  I  will 
tell  you,"  he  said  into  the  trumpet. 

"  Thank  you,  no.     Come,  Alligator !" 

Damn  that  Strauss  waltz — why  did  they  play  it  so  low, 
you  could  hardly  hear  it!  Why  didn't  they  crash  it  out 
in  drowning  thunders  ?  His  Parliamentary  resourceful- 
ness rose  to  the  crisis.  He  bent  forward  to  bawl  into  the 
trumpet : 

"  I  hope  your  sunstroke —  ?" 

The  Duchess  whisked  the  trumpet  away,  and  dragged 
the  hostess  a  step  forwards.  Allegra  had  returned  to  her 
astral  aloofness:  she  was  fascinated  by  the  dramatic  duel 
between  the  master  of  the  show  and  the  beloved  old  face 
under  the  towering  tiara. 

Broser  put  his  hand  detainingly  upon  his  wife's  arm. 
He  was  flushed  and  perspiring.  "  Get  rid  of  her,  please," 
he  breathed,  "  don't  let  us  have  a  scene." 

A  scene !  Allegra  thought  the  scene  was  there,  and 
odd  enough  to  amuse  the  most  fastidious  playgoer.  The 
few  instants  of  its  duration  seemed  to  her  the  length  of 
an  Act,  and  she  wondered  the  excitement  of  it  had  not  vi- 
brated through  all  the  rooms,  that  behind  her  and  around 
her  people  were  still  humming  pleasantly,  and  that  the 
Strauss  waltz  was  still  gliding  011  in  spiral  sweetness 

456 


FAREWELL 

through  everything.  Then  she  heard  herself  replying  firm- 
ly :  "  There  must  be  no  scene,  Aunt  Emma.  I  will  come 
with  you — but  later."  And  as  the  reply  with  its  im- 
mense implications  penetrated  her  own  brain,  she  awoke 
again. 

"  We  can't  always  avoid  scenes,"  said  the  Duchess. 
She  was  prepared  to  enjoy  herself  immensely — touch  the 
crowning  moment  of  a  lifetime  of  public  scolding,  the 
town-crier  climax  of  a  candid  career. 

But  Allegra  looked  at  her  dominatingly  and  shook  her 
head,  and  imperceptibly  pulling  at  her  hand  in  turn  drew 
her  towards  the  room.  "  Wait !"  she  said  authoritatively. 
"  Till  the  Prince  has  gone."  The  reminder  contributed 
to  calm  the  Duchess.  As  Allegra  turned  her  head  again 
to  greet  the  next  guest,  her  eye,  still  full  of  its  dominating 
fire,  met  Broser's  and  he  knew  that  he  was  beaten. 

He  had  been  outwitted.  Allegra,  standing  there  for 
hours  so  innocently,  had  planned  this  unprecedented  hu- 
miliation, this  craftily  feminine  and  cowardly  circum- 
vention. He  could  have  throttled  her,  the  criminal  con- 
spiratress,  hurled  her  down  the  stairs.  And  that  absurd 
old  confederate  of  hers — he  could  have  battered  in  her 
ridiculous  tiara  with  her  own  ear-trumpet.  He  remember- 
ed the  episode  of  the  hall-door,  her  touching  her  bonnet 
to  her  own  footman.  Who  knew  what  she  might  say  or  do  ? 
She  was  capable  of  any  mad  folly.  Heaven  grant  this 
night  at  least  passed  without  the  breaking  of  the  now 
inevitable  storm  of  scandal.  He  was  in  a  fury  of  appre- 
hension and  impotency,  tortured  by  his  deepest  instincts 
of  domestic  propriety  and  public  dignity. 

The  flow  of  late  arrivals  continued;  running  thinner. 
Allegra's  daze  had  been  replaced  by  a  clear  consciousness 
that  she  was  winding  up  her  relations  with  Broser.  In  a 
few  hours  the  long  hypocrisy  would  be  over.  Nevermore 
the  need  to  keep  the  bombshells  "  in  her  brain." 

"  But  surely,"  Broser  protested  in  a  fierce  undertone, 
"  you  don't  mean  to  go." 

457 


THE   MANTLE   OF   ELIJAH 

"  With  the  last  of  your  guests.  How  do  you  do,  Sir 
Percival  ?" 

His  monstrous  will  was  conclusively  baffled  for  the  first 
time,  and  that  not  by  a  European  coalition,  but  inglorious- 
ly  by  two  specimens  of  the  sex  he  had  never  taken  into 
his  serious  calculations.  To  aggravate  the  irony,  Fate 
had  bided  its  time  till  the  scowls  and  protrusive  eye- 
balls, which  were  wont  to  relieve  his  tension  under 
opposition,  must  be  replaced  by  smiles.  Allegra,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  grateful  that  in  this  last  quarrel  of 
all  she  was  spared  all  physical  expression,  and  the  intoler- 
able strain  of  verbal  argument.  Again  and  again,  as  they 
waited,  in  this  palpitant  atmosphere  of  music  and  light 
and  flowers  and  buzzing  voices,  amid  the  many-colored 
brilliance  of  the  ever-shifting  crowd,  in  a  fever  that  made 
hours  of  the  few  minutes,  he  edged  in  a  passage  of  en- 
treaty, of  command,  of  threat.  But  Allegra  would  not 
answer,  went  on  with  her  smiling  greetings.  He  had  rid- 
den rough-shod  over  every  rival  will:  he  must  endure 
this  one  exception.  Only  once — to  his  husky  whisper: 
"  How  do  you  expect  me  to  explain  things  ?"  did  she  vouch- 
safe a  reply. 

"  You  have  explained  away  so  much.  Explain  me 
away." 

And  she  reassured  herself  that  her  consciousness  of 
coming  freedom  was  no  illusion,  by  glancing  at  that 
quaint  old  figure  of  the  Duchess,  who,  she  was  aware, 
remained  posted  close  behind  her,  with  an  air  of  waiting 
implacability,  which  seemed  to  invest  her  with  the  dignity 
of  a  figure  of  Fate. 

The  thrill  from  the  frenzied  street  passed  across  the 
hall,  mounting  the  rose-heaped  stairs,  penetrating  the 
packed  rooms.  Private  herald  of  the  advent,  the  equerry 
whispered  his  little  list  of  those  whom  the  Prince  would 
delight  to  honor  in  the  sanctum  of  reception  below. 

The  band  stopped  the  Strauss  waltz  in  the  middle  of  a 

458 


FAREWELL 

bar,  and  broke  into  the  familiar  anthem,  doubly  familiar 
in  the  feverish  war-time : 

"  Among  our  ancient  mountains, 
And  from  our  lovely  vales, 
O  let  the  pray'r  re-echo  ". . . 

Broser  was  tottering  ceremoniously  down  the  stairs. 


THE   END 


BY  I.  ZANGWILL 


DREAMERS  OF  THE  GHETTO.      Post  8vo,  Cloth. 
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